19 March 2008
The Island Explorer bus service, which serves most of the attractions and beaches on the Island will be starting on Good Friday this week. There are four separate routes – the Red, Blue, Green and Yellow routes – which provide interchanges between each other and also with the main scheduled service.
Transport and Technical Services has implemented some changes to the Island Explorer service following its first year of operation in 2007. The Red and the Blue Routes, serving the west of the Island, are no longer circular routes but meet at Jersey Pearl so passengers can change services. The Green Route, serving the east has also been simplified so it runs to and from St Helier via the same routing. There are also additional services on the Yellow Route which joins the east and the west of the Island along the northern route. In addition, access has been increased to the cliff paths in an effort to encourage bus-walk-bus type trips.
In addition to the Island Explorer, a new circular route, the Route 75, will operate on Sundays
until late May and serve St Lawrence, St Mary and St John.
The Minister for Transport and Technical Services, Deputy Guy de Faye, said “I am delighted that this weekend sees the start of the Island Explorer service for 2008. It proved a great success with both visitors and residents last year and I hope that the changes we have made will make it an even more successful service this year. I also like the fact that we have been able to supplement the Sunday services through the spring by offering a new circular route in the middle of the Island.” He added “I’d like to remind all our senior citizens that they can use their concessionary passes on the Island Explorer services as well as on the main network.”
The Island Explorer will run throughout the 4 day Easter weekend, again the following weekend (Saturday and Sunday 29 and 30 March) and will start on a daily service from Saturday 5 April which coincides with the start of the schools’ Easter holidays. All these services are listed in a new spring timetable available from Liberation Station. Deputy de Faye added “The timetables are once again available free to all customers because I want as many people as possible to find out about and use our bus services.”
In addition, TTS has responded to requests to keep Liberation Station open later in the evenings and, as of last Sunday, the closing time has changed to 8 pm from Monday to Saturday every week. This was the previously agreed summer closing time which would have come into operation in May when the summer timetable is launched, but Connex and TTS are trialling this later time to provide better facilities for its passenge
gov.je