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.

Some services have been more successful than others, with one service to Southampton competing with Bluestar being withdrawn in less than 12 months.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

As of November 2019, Xelabus operates 14 routes, where the routes terminate in Eastleigh with the exception of shopper bus routes, X10, X11 and X12.[9]

Xelabus initially operated a fleet of seven vehicles.[2] Three were destroyed in a depot fire in March 2011.[10] Their fleet has grown to around 40 vehicles as of October 2019[8] and consist of mostly Enviro200s and Scania Omnilinks.

Media related to Xelabus at Wikimedia Commons

• Company website