Southern Vectis route 10

Southern Vectis route 10 was a bus service operated on the Isle of Wight by Southern Vectis between Newport and Sandown. It also ran via Brading, St Helens, Bembridge, Whitecliff Bay and Yaverland. The general daytime frequency of the route was every hour in each direction. A mixture of single-decker buses and double-decker buses were normally used to operate the route.
There were several points of tourist interest on the route, including Whitecliff Bay, Isle of Wight Zoo and Dinosaur Isle.
History
From November 2003, the actual route the current service 10 later took was partially covered by the then . This took operations on the route from Sandown to Bembridge via Whitecliff Bay. Before this, this part of the route had been previously run as part of the Number One service. The service for this was one bus per hour, weekday daytime only. Prior to 2006, there was no regular direct bus service between Newport and Brading.
This changed with Southern Vectis' network revision in April 2006 when the service was first numbered as 10. As such, when it first began operation Newport bus station was in the process of being redeveloped, and so along with most of Southern Vectis' other routes, it operated from Newport's temporary Litten Park bus stands. On 2 April 2006 the route started as an off-peak service with six journeys in each direction with an hourly frequency. This was later upgraded to provide a service later into the afternoon from 31 December 2006. On 30 September 2007, Sunday services were introduced with an hourly frequency.
From 20 December 2009 the route was withdrawn and amalgamated with route 8 which has been extended to serve Yaverland and Bembridge, and on to Ryde on the route of former services 14 and 16. This was due to a cut in subsidy paid by the Isle of Wight Council to Southern Vectis for concessionary travel. The changes mean that the only direct bus links between Newport and Brading are now on the much longer routes 2 and 3 via Shanklin and Ventnor respectively.
Route
Since the route started in its final form, (from Newport to Sandown) from April 2006, the actual route the bus takes saw minor changes. From 31 August 2008 the route no longer served the Culver estate in Yaverland. In response to this, Wightbus's route 22, a one journey per day service was re-routed and extended to serve the Culver estate. Also at this time, on arriving at Sandown, route 10 was extended to terminate at Melville Street instead of Sandown High Street previously.
Past services
An hourly service was run in each direction from Newport to Sandown. Sunday services also ran hourly. There was no evening service.<ref name="route 10 every 60 minutes"/>

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