I’m sorry to confirm that this route will no longer serve Slinfold from the beginning of June.
We took on Service 63 at the end of 2021 when Arriva closed down its local Guildford business due to poor financial performance. Since that time, we’ve been reviewing all the routes we acquired to understand their strengths and weaknesses, to try and turn their loss-making network into one that can be commercially sustainable in the longer-term. We’ve worked around the network making quite significant changes where necessary but, until now, we’ve not looked at the services in the Cranleigh area.
Unfortunately, Service 63 is not a strong performer between Horsham and Cranleigh, as it operates at relatively high cost but has a fairly limited customer base. It is also the least punctual service running from Guildford depot, with nearly a third of buses running more than 5 minutes late each week. That level of poor performance is unacceptable, and we’ve had to fully review all options to ensure buses can run on time with revenue more than matching the cost of provision. We don’t receive any financial support for Service 63 – it runs solely on ticket revenue from customers.
Given the relatively low number of customers, we ruled out the option of adding more buses and drivers to make the existing route more punctual – as this would simply have raised costs by 25% without much hope of new passenger demand to match. Instead, in the absence of funding, making the route shorter was the only realistic option. Slinfold and Bucks Green were both identified as potential areas for change, of which Slinfold has an alternative Horsham service provided by another operator.
We carry low double-figure numbers of customers from Slinfold to Horsham on an average weekday and two or three customers towards Guildford. Most of these customers will be able to switch to the Compass 100 relatively easily, although some will need to change bus if heading towards Cranleigh and Guildford. Whilst our 63 does run at fairly regular hourly times, unfortunately the 100 does not. That made it very difficult to try and align connection times as theses would only ever work well at certain times of day.
The new Service 63 timetable will allow customers to change buses in Horsham, or at stops on the A281 after the A24 depending on the time of their next bus. This isn’t ideal, as it will be indirect and slower, but we can’t justify a direct service for such small numbers of regular customers. Changing at the A24 and crossing the road may be slightly more secure if a bus is running late.
We have posted notices at bus stops as well as on our website. Taking the decision to remove Slinfold from Service 63 was not easy, but we’re not in a position for ‘do nothing’ to be an option. I’m hopeful the new timetable will now offer a better and more reliable service for the remaining majority customers using it, so the route can survive and develop in the years ahead.