Increased journeys  - 253 and X62 routes

We are pleased to confirm from Monday 28 November we are making improvements to service X62 Peebles to Edinburgh and service 253, Berwick upon Tweed to Edinburgh. 

Over the past 18 months we have invested heavily in our recruitment initiatives and whilst it is still a huge challenge; we are now able to make some changes and increase journeys in response to demand.

Service updates include: 

Service 253 

Service 253 will be re-routed to serve Fort Kinnaird Shopping Centre.  We will serve the Fort East bus stop on our way in and out of Edinburgh.  We expect this will be a popular change, providing travel opportunities for work and leisure, especially for those under the age of 22 eligible for free bus travel. 

Service X62 

The demand for service X62 between Peebles and Edinburgh has continued to grow. We are making improvements to the weekday timetables, where we are experiencing the most significant demand. In time we hope to extend weekend journeys. 

In order to accommodate the proposed timetable service 362 will be cancelled from the same date as this has been incorporated within the timetable for service X62. 

We will update our journey planner with new bus times shortly. In the meantime check out the new times.

X62 Journey information 

		No of Journeys		First Journey		Last Journey
From	To	Pre 28 Nov	28 Nov	Pre 28 Nov	28 Nov	Pre 28 Nov	28  Nov
Galashiels	Edinburgh	13	25	5:55	5:55	19:25	19:55
Peebles	Edinburgh	13	26	6:44	5:44	20:14	20:44
Edinburgh	Galashiels	13	26	8:20	7:20	22:20	22:20

We appreciate this might not be the best news for those travelling on other routes and would ask that those customers recognise this is our first steps in regrowing our network. We cannot physically increase other journeys without negatively impacting our bus network or put added pressure on our Borders Buses' team, who have worked tirelessly ensuring we keep people moving. 

As we secure more drivers and continue to regrow the network we would like to point out it  it will - in some parts - be a different one to our pre-C19 service offering. Hybrid working, home working, a huge drop in those over 60s travelling on bus, and an increase of younger people now eligible for free bus travel is changing customer travel patterns and in turn creating a new demand on our network.

We will continue to monitor and when possible add extra resource where we can. We thank you in advance for your understanding.