Southern Vectis route 6

Southern Vectis route 6 is a bus service operated on the Isle of Wight by Southern Vectis between Newport, Blackgang and Ventnor. It also runs via Carisbrooke, Chillerton, Chale and Niton. The general daytime frequency of the route is every hour each direction. A mixture of single-decker buses and Double-decker buses are normally used to operate the route.

There are several points of tourist interest on the route, including Ventnor Botanic Garden, Blackgang Chine and Carisbrooke Castle.

History

Route 6 before April 2006

The actual route taken by buses on service 6 has not changed in some time.. The route was created by a merging of various other routes. The route prior to 2006 was from Newport to Chillerton, Chale and Blackgang, then to Niton. Within Niton, some buses also served the Buddle Inn, then all buses would continue to Whitwell and Ventnor.

Route 6 was created in the last decade of the 20th century, mainly by renumbering Southern Vectis route 16, which ran from Ryde to Shanklin and Ventnor mainly along the A3055 road. A short section of that service has been revived as Wightbus route 16. Route 6 continues onwards from Ventnor to Blackgang, Chale, Chillerton and Newport.

Many journeys on this route operated as through buses from Newport to Ryde via Sandown Bay. Initially these were numbered 6 throughout, but from 2001 these were renumbered as services 7, 7A and 7B between Ventnor and Ryde. Because of this many buses on the route operated as service 6 only from Newport to Chale, where they would change number.

The route has at various times included a variation whereby buses would run from Newport to Niton via Rookley before continuing towards Ventnor. This variation has not always been numbered distinctly from the main route 6, but has sometimes been flagged separately as the 6A. It has also been numbered 19.

Current Route

The current revision of route 6 began operation by 1 April 2006 at the point of Southern Vectis' network change. As such, Newport bus station was in the process of being redeveloped, and so along with most of Southern Vectis' other routes, it operated from Newport's temporary Litten Park bus stands. At this point, the frequency was increased from broadly one bus every two hours, to an hourly service. This was possible due to the withdrawal of all services on the Island Explorer route.

Route

The main route as it stands today retains virtually all of the pre-2006 route. Services to Niton's Buddle Inn were abandoned from the timetable change on 16 March 2008, but the core route from Newport to Ventnor continued with virtually no difference. An extension of the service from Ventnor to St Lawrence was trialled in 2007, but was withdrawn between St Lawrence and the Ventnor Botanic Garden.

The route is therefore from Newport to Chale via Carisbrooke, Gatcombe and Chillerton, then to Niton via Blackgang (along the A3055 road) before serving Whitwell, Ventnor Botanic Gardens and Ventnor town centre.

Services

An hourly service is operated in each direction during the daytime. There is no evening service.

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See also

• List of Southern Vectis bus routes
• Transportation on the Isle of Wight

External links

• Southern Vectis website - islandbuses.info
• Southern Vectis route list
• Southern Vectis route 6
• Full timetable