Portsmouth - Transport and Communications

Transport and Communications

Bus services

Local bus services are provided by First Hampshire & Dorset and Stagecoach serving the city of Portsmouth and the surroundings of Havant, Leigh Park, Waterlooville, Fareham, Petersfield and long distance service 700 to Chichester, Worthing and Brighton. Hovertravel and Stagecoach run the Hoverbus from the City Centre to Southsea Hovercraft Terminal and The Hard Interchange. Countryliner run a Saturday service to Midhurst. Xelea Bus operate, a Sunday open top seafront summer service as of 2012, it's number is X25. National Express services from Portsmouth run mainly from The Hard Interchange to London, Cornwall, Bradford, Birkenhead and Eastbourne. Many bus services also stop at The Hard Interchange. Other bus services run from the City Centre, from Commercial Road North or Commercial Road South other bus stops are on Station Street, Isambard Brunell Road and Edinbrough road. A new bus station has been proposed next to Portsmouth & Southsea Station replacing Commercial Road South bus stops and new bus stops and taxi ranks on Andrew Bell Street are to replace the Commercial Road North bus stops when the Northern Quarter Development is built.

Light rapid transit and monorail

There is an ongoing debate on the development of public transport structure, with monorails and light rail both being considered. A light rail link to Gosport has been authorised but is unlikely to go ahead following the refusal of funding by the Department for Transport in November 2005. In April 2011 an article appeared in 'The News' suggesting a new scheme could be in the offering by running a light rapid transit system over the line to Southampton via Fareham Bursuldon and Sholimg replacing the existing heavy rail services. Two of the operators FGR and Southern are in the process of re routeing their Southampton services beyond Fareham to serve Eastleigh and Southampton Airport Parkway leaving just the SWT hourly service on the current route The monorail scheme is unlikely to proceed following the withdrawal of official support for the proposal by Portsmouth City Council, after the development's promoters failed to progress the scheme to agreed timetables.

Roads

There are three main road links to the mainland, signposted as "Out of City" from the City Centre. These are the M275, A3 (London Road) and A2030 (Eastern Road). The M27 has a junction connecting to the M275 into Portsmouth. The A27 has a westbound exit onto the A3 (London Road) and a junction onto the A2030 (Eastern Road). The A3(M) road is a short section of motorway which runs from Bedhampton north to Horndean. There is a fourth link out of the city for cycles and motor-cycles, this links Hilsea and Cosham via Peronne Road with a bridge crossing the A27.

The A3 links Portsmouth with London, though much traffic uses the M27 and M3. The M27, M3 and A34 provide the other major routes to the Midlands and the North of England.

Cycling

The city is connected to Route 2 of the National Cycle Network.

Railways

The city has several mainline railway stations, on two different direct South West Trains routes to London Waterloo, via Guildford and via Basingstoke. There is also a South West Trains stopping service to Southampton Central (providing connections to Crosscountry services to Birmingham and Manchester), and a service by First Great Western to Cardiff Central via Southampton, Salisbury, Bath and Bristol. Southern also offer services to Brighton and London Victoria.

Portsmouth's stations are (in order, out of the city): Portsmouth Harbour, Portsmouth and Southsea, Fratton, Hilsea and Cosham (the last being on the mainland).

Ferries

Portsmouth Harbour has passenger ferry links to Gosport and the Isle of Wight. A car ferry service to the Isle of Wight operated by Wightlink is nearby. Britain's longest-standing commercial hovercraft service, begun in the 1960s, still runs (for foot passengers) from near Clarence Pier to Ryde, Isle of Wight, operated by Hovertravel.

Portsmouth Continental Ferry Port has links to Caen, Cherbourg-Octeville, St Malo and Le Havre in France, and Santander, Cantabria, in Spain and the Channel Islands. Ferry services from the port are operated by Brittany Ferries, Condor Ferries and LD Lines. On 18 May 2006 Acciona Trasmediterranea started a service to Bilbao in competition with P&O's then existing service. This service got off to a bad start when the ferry Fortuny was detained in Portsmouth by the MCA for numerous safety breaches. The faults were quickly corrected by Acciona and the service took its first passengers from Portsmouth on 25 May 2006. During 2007 AT Ferries withdrew the Bilbao service at short notice, citing the need to deploy the Fortuny elsewhere. P&O Ferries ceased their service to Bilbao on 27 September 2010. The port is the second busiest ferry port in the UK after Dover, handling around three million passengers a year and has direct access to the M275.

Airports

The nearest airport is Southampton which is approximately 20–30 minutes away by motorway, with an indirect South West Trains rail connection requiring a change at Southampton Central or Eastleigh.

Heathrow and Gatwick are both about 60–90 minutes away by motorway. Gatwick is directly linked by Southern services to London Victoria, while Heathrow is linked by coach to Woking, which is on both rail lines to London Waterloo, or by tube to either Victoria or Waterloo. Heathrow is directly linked to Portsmouth by National Express coaches.

Portsmouth Airport, an airport with grass runway, was in operation from 1932 to 1973. After its closure, housing, industrial sites, retail areas and a school were built on the site.

Communications

Portsmouth uses the telephone area code 023 in conjunction with eight-digit local numbers. Local numbers usually begin with '9', with numbers beginning '92' being the most common. As Southampton shares the same 023 area code, landline calls between the two cities can be made using just the eight digit local number, despite their not being adjacent.

Prior to April 2000, Portsmouth used the area code 01705 with six-digit local numbers. The 01705 area code itself replaced the older 0705 code in 1995.