Xelabus

Alexander bodied open-top Leyland Atlantean in Portsmouth in June 2012

Xelabus was founded in November 2010 by bus enthusiast Gareth Blair, son of well-known bus enthusiast Philip Blair. It originally operated seven bus routes which were mainly supermarket routes for Asda and Tesco. A free service in Eastleigh was the first route to be introduced.[2] Since then nine more routes have commenced including an Open Top Tour "Sea the city" and some more supermarket services.[3] Vehicles are painted in a green livery similar to that of the former Hants & Dorset company that used to run in the region until 1983 when it was dissolved.

Some services have been more successful than others, with one service to Southampton competing with Bluestar being withdrawn in less than 12 months.

In September 2012 Xelabus began a two-year contract to operate services to Totton College.[4]

On 12 May 2014, Xelabus took over route 67 Winchester to Petersfield via West Meon from Velvet under contract to Hampshire County Council.[5] On 22 June 2014, it took over the Barton Peveril College routes from Velvet.[6] In August 2015, Xelabus acquired the route and school services of Brijan Tours.[7]

On the 4th of November, 2019, Xelabus introduced contactless payments across their vehicles.[8] For a short time during the 2020 Coronavirus outbreak, all Xelabus service were suspended in March for three months until June where over time it started to return to a normal frequency.[9][10]

As of July 2020, Xelabus operates 15 routes, where the routes terminate in Eastleigh with the exception of shopper bus routes, X10, X11, X12 and X21.[11] Xelabus also runs several contracted routes to local schools and colleges in Southampton and Eastleigh.

The X21 is the only route they have that is contracted by the University of Southampton, which runs via Southampton Airport Parkway and uses an Enviro200 MMC, equipped with WiFi Facilities and leather seating.[12]

Xelabus initially operated a fleet of seven vehicles which had grown to around 40 vehicles in October 2019.[2][8] The company took order of three Wright Gemini B5LH's for their Itchen College contracted routes in April 2018.[13]

The majority of their fleet contains Enviro200s with a number of Plaxton Presidents, Wright Eclipse Geminis and East Lancs Omnidekkas.

A fire broke out in the depot during the evening of 13 March 2011. Several vehicles were damaged with three being destroyed in the fire and firefighters arrived to the scene to prevent the fire from spreading to a nearby two-storey building. Investigators were on the scene, with one claiming that it was a deliberate attack on the company.[14][15]

On 16 November 2019, a bus on a service collided with an 88-year old man. The man was later rushed to the hospital where he died from his injuries.[16]

Media related to Xelabus at Wikimedia Commons

• Company website