Xelabus


Xelabus Limited is a small independent bus operator, based in Eastleigh, Hampshire. It operates within the Southampton and Eastleigh area, with some services branching off into Hedge End and Bishop's Waltham.

History

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. Since then nine more routes have commenced including an Open Top Tour "Sea the city" and some more supermarket services. 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Some services have been more successful than others, with one service to Southampton competing with Bluestar being withdrawn in less than 12 months.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.
On 12 May 2014, Xelabus took over route 67 Winchester to Petersfield via West Meon from Velvet under contract to Hampshire County Council. On 22 June 2014, it took over the Barton Peveril College routes from Velvet. In August 2015, Xelabus acquired the route and school services of Brijan Tours.
On the 4th of November, 2019, Xelabus introduced contactless payments across their vehicles. For a short time during the 2019 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.

Services

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.

Fleet

Xelabus initially operated a fleet of seven vehicles. Three were destroyed in a suspected arson attack in March 2011.
The company took order of three Wright Gemini B5LH's for their Itchen College contracted routes in April 2018. Their fleet has grown to around 40 vehicles in October 2019 and the majority of them are Enviro200s with a number of Plaxton Presidents and East Lancs Omnidekkas.