Solent Blue Line Limited is a bus operator in Southampton, trading under Bluestar since 2003. The operator provide services in Southampton and the surrounding areas of Hampshire. Bluestar are a company that operate within the Go South Coast sector of the Go-Ahead Group.

History

Origins In 1987, Musterphantom Limited was created by John Chadwick and Peter Shelley. £100,000 was then raised to start operations in May 1987. £75,000 of which came from Southern Vectis, with the new company ending up as a subsidiary. The new company received old Southern Vectis Bristol VRTs to start operating. Chadwick & Shelley (both former managers at Citybus) and Southern Vectis both wanted to challenge the position of Southampton Citybus, which operated most routes within Southampton.

Expansion In October 1987, The Hants & Sussex Bus Company was purchased by Solent Blue Line, from Basil Williams.Companies House extract company no 3203900 Hants & Sussex Omnibus Limited This deal was finalised on 3 October 1987.

Throughout the 1980s, the National Bus Company was privatised and forcibly demerged. The bus market as a whole was deregulated. This resulted in Hants & Dorset being broken into three new companies in 1983. One of these was Hampshire Bus, which became part of Stagecoach South in April 1987. The Southampton and Eastleigh arm of this company was then sold to Solent Blue Line on 4 October 1987. The sale included 82 buses, the Eastleigh Chickenhall Lane depot and the local routes.

After less than a year operating, the company had gone from 16 buses to over 115. It had also developed a significant network. Due to this, rationalisation was undertaken, with the company restructuring its operations. By 1988, it was in a good position to challenge CityBus. In the next five years, the company bought new vehicles, so that in 1993, 1 in 3 of its buses were new. At this point, some services started to be run under franchise by Marchwood Motorways, with them operating route '30' and '32' from Totton to Southampton. This would later expand to include route '18' and '19'. This was based out of their Totton Salisbury Road depot. Brijan Tours was also used to run some services.

Start of the Century In 2003, Solent Blue Line carried out a rebrand, involving a new name and the launch of the Bluestar brand soon after, as a name for their core services. (Please Note: due to archiving problems, the text is white and therefore not visible without highlighting the text) Bluestar services 1 and 2 launched in 2004, the 3 and 4 services commenced operations a year later, and the Waterside services 8 and 9 had fully launched by 2006.

In July 2005 Solent Blue Line was included in the sale of Southern Vectis to the Go-Ahead Group.Recommended Cash for Southern Vectis plc Go-Ahead Group 11 July 2005 The head office functions of the company were consolidated with those of the other Go South Coast companies, Southern Vectis and Wilts & Dorset, in Poole.

In March 2006, the company changed its legal name to Solent Blue Line. Then in October, Solent Blue Line purchased Marchwood Motorways.Acquisition of Marchwood Buses Go-Ahead Group 24 March 2006 After the withdrawal of the Red Rocket brand on 25 February 2008, most of the company's services began to run under the Bluestar brand. In September 2008, Bluestar commenced running City-Link, which initially was a free shuttle between Town Quay and Southampton Central Station. The two buses used on the service were Dennis Darts inherited from Enterprise, the previous operator, and were repainted in a new two-tone blue livery with the interiors re-branded.

The service was re-branded as QuayConnect in May 2016 with a new red and white livery featuring Red Jet 6, along with free WiFi and real time departure information.

2010s

Since 2010, the fleet had undergone several updates including: USB charging points Tap on, Tap off (contactless payments) Live Tracking Low emission engines (Euro 6) Next-stop announcements (visual and audio) Free WiFi (Disabled)

Bluestar was awarded £0.23m in funding from the Department of Transport to roll out Wi-Fi on 120 buses, although this has now been withdrawn due to the growth in 4G and 5G usage. Contactless card payments were introduced in June 2017, on all Bluestar and Unilink buses, as part of a £1.6m investment from Hampshire County Council. Finally, Bluestar once had Smartcard called 'the Key'. This worked on all Go South Coast services. This was withdrawn in June 2023, due to low usage, alongside the high uptake of Tap on, Tap off.

Bus Trials The company trialled a Wright StreetDeck with a set of dual doors in February 2018 whether passengers could effectively board and de-board through the front and rear doors. The bus was loaned from Brighton & Hove for trialling on Bluestar route 18. Later in November of the same year, the company unveiled 19 ADL Enviro400 Cities, replacing the single deck buses used on the route the trials took place on.

Bluestar has also been one of the test sites for new air filter technology which removes and captures particulates from the atmosphere. A test has been done in September 2018 for 100 days and has claimed to have cleaned 3.2 million cubic metres. It is planned that these will be fitted onto buses nationwide on Go Ahead's buses. To accompany this, they have also installed solar panels onto the roof of the test bus to see if the filter can be made to run on its own power. 16 more buses have been installed with solar panels to reduce maintenance costs and fuel consumption. There are 6 buses with the air filter, including the original with the prototype air filter installed on ADL Enviro200 MMC types, wearing the Bluestar "breathe" branding.

Aside from the air filter trials, the company had also carried out feasibility trials for battery electric vehicles with Southampton City council. These trials took place in June 2021.

2020s Towards the end of November 2022, First Hampshire & Dorset announced the intention to withdraw their Southampton-based operations following low patronage levels and increased operating costs. This took place on 19th February 2023, with Bluestar adding six replacement routes to its network, servicing the areas where the former company operated.

In July 2023, Xelabus reduced their public bus network and transferred their X4 and X7 routes to the company, subsequently being renumbered to 24 and 23 respectively. During October 2024, the company gained two more services from Xelabus, renumbered to 21 and 22.

In December 2023, Bluestar had won the award of "UK Bus Operator of the Year", along with three accolades. These were awarded by the annual UK Bus award scheme, as Bluestar had won this award twice in 2017 and 2018.

During 2024, Bluestar received sixteen Enviro400 MMCs allocated mainly to routes 2 and 7, as well as eighteen cascaded single decker buses from Bournemouth. Twelve refurbished double decker buses also gradually entered service with the operator to phase out temporary buses on cross city route 19, and at a later date, route 19a.

In March 2025, the operator introduced ten double decker buses with “theone” branding to replace the existing fleet of buses operating on the Bluestar 1 route between Southampton and Winchester. The replacements offer USB charging ports, stop bells upstairs behind each seat, and brand new Euro 6 engine technology, which significantly reduces emissions from the exhaust and helps the environment.

Services Bluestar 1 (Southampton to Winchester)

Bluestar 1 is the flagship service of the network, and runs the corridor from Southampton to Winchester, via Bassett, Chilworth, Chandlers Ford, Shawford, Otterbourne and St Cross. It was previously known as the 47 mostly before the rebrand to Bluestar in 2003. Upon the initial launch to the 1 in 2009, Bluestar held an event for the first seven buses dedicated to this route, in February of that year. These buses were of the Scania OmniCity type, using Scania N230UD in-house chassis. The 1 service consequently has had several fleets of vehicles over its life, ranging from the introduction of Alexander Dennis Enviro400s in September 2013, the most iconic set of vehicles on the Alexander Dennis Enviro400 MMC design in October 2016, and the most recent as of April 2026 are 2025 variants of the third generation vehicles, featuring stop-start engine technology, the ADL Smartseats fitted on board, and cameras to replace the front overhang mirrors.

Bluestar 19/19a (Thornhill to Lordshill) Upon First Southampton takeover of the 19 in February 2023, it retains its frequency of 15 minutes from its initial trial, but was extended beyond the Southampton Central Railway Station to match the route 3. Another change was the upgrade to full double decker operation under the new operator, using thirteen temporary Go North East Wright Eclipse Gemini buses. They were rather quickly withdrawn, following noise pollution complaints. One resident even compared their noise level to jet engines.

The original vehicles were replaced with twelve Dennis Trident Optare Olympus vehicles from London General. (Image credit H&D Trim.)

In February 2025, as part of Bluestar annual timetable improvements, a new route 19a was launched following years of feedback about service down the Hill Lane area adjacent to Southampton Common. The service operates every 30 minutes, on an alternated timetable.

Unilink

The Unilink services are run under contract by Bluestar, in partnership with the University of Southampton. All services share a common section at the Highfield Lane Bus Hub, which houses the university main campus.

Nightstar Nightstar is a network of night-time running services which mirror a select few daytime services. It originally commenced in 2004 where services ran on Friday and Saturday nights and were aimed at people who had a night out in Southampton. The service commenced alongside the new bluestar services and ran from 00:45 until 03:45. All services began at Leisure World, Southampton and made their way past other large clubs before completing its route. These routes generally followed those of their daytime number counterparts with additional stops to take into account destinations served by other routes. The routes spanned from Winchester in the North, Langley in the west and Hamble in the east. In February 2014, all but the Unilink U1N ceased to run due to council funding cuts.

Nightstar was reintroduced in April 2024, with Bluestar operating route 1 throughout Friday and Saturday nights, numbered 'N1' during the night. It diverts from the usual route in Winchester, allowing it to serve the Royal Hampshire County Hospital. This route is funded by Hampshire County Council, through their 'Bus Service Improvement Plan'. As a result of a partnership with Bluestar, Hampshire County Council and Southampton City Council, Routes 2, 17 and 18 gained 24/7 services that commenced on 31st August 2025. As part of a further £6.3m scheme from the Hampshire County Council, route 9 will begin to run on Friday and Saturday nights under the 'N9' number, which is due to start in September 2026.

QuayConnect

QuayConnect is a service contracted by Red Funnel since 2014, between Central Station and the Red Funnel terminal. Originally known as CityLink, it offers free rides for Red Funnel ticket holders.