Solent Blue Line Limited,[1] trading under the name Bluestar, is a bus operator providing services in Southampton and the surrounding areas of Hampshire.

[2][3] In October 1987, The Hants & Sussex Bus Company was purchased by Solent Blue Line, from Basil Williams.

The Southampton and Eastleigh arm of this company was then sold to Solent Blue Line on 4 October 1987.

At this point, some services started to be run under franchise by Marchwood Motorways, with them operating route '30' and '32' from Totton to Southampton.

[10] In July 2005 Solent Blue Line was included in the sale of Southern Vectis to the Go-Ahead Group.

[15]In September 2008, Bluestar commenced running City-Link, which initially was a free shuttle between Town Quay and Southampton Central Station.

[16] The two buses used on the service were Dennis Darts inherited from Enterprise, the previous operator, and were repainted in a new two-tone blue livery with the interiors re-branded.

[17] Since 2010, the fleet had undergone several updates including:[18][better source needed] Bluestar was awarded £0.23m in funding from the Department of Transport to roll out Wi-Fi on 120 buses,[19] although this has now been withdrawn due to the growth in 4G and 5G usage.

Contactless card payments were introduced in June 2017, on all Bluestar and Unilink buses, as part of a £1.6m investment from Hampshire County Council.

[24] Later in November of the same year, the company unveiled 19 ADL Enviro400 Cities, replacing the single deck buses used on the route the trials took place on.

[25] Bluestar has also been one of the test sites for new air filter technology which removes and captures particulates from the atmosphere.

[27] To accompany this, they have also installed solar panels onto the roof of the test bus to see if the filter can be made to run on its own power.

It diverts from the usual route in Winchester, allowing it to serve the Royal Hampshire County Hospital.

Originally known as CityLink, it offers free rides for ticket holders bought from Red Funnel.

[16] Southampton City Council announced their decision in February 2014 to cut funding to CityLink which put the service at risk of being withdrawn.

[47] WestQuay then made the same decision in April 2014 which left Red Funnel to step up to take over the CityLink contract.

[17][50][51] Circular tourist routes in the New Forest using open-top buses are operated jointly by Bluestar and Morebus.

[57] All services began at Leisure World, Southampton and made their way past other large clubs before completing its route.

[58] Red Rocket was launched on 3 September 2006 as a high frequency network centred on Eastleigh, extending to Winchester in the north and Hamble-le-Rice in the south.

There were originally six Red Rocket routes, lettered to avoid confusion with the Bluestar and Solent Blue Line service in operation at the time.

Solent Blue Line took over the service, but ran into difficulties following the cessation of funding from Portsmouth and Southampton City Councils.

[65] The route saw a brief reprieve in April 2008, when the service ran for two days on 26 and 27 of that month, as part of the Caribbean festival in Southampton.

[73] The service was initially registered as a Wilts & Dorset route to begin on 15 September 2008 with VOSA, but this was later cancelled and replaced with an identical Bluestar registration.

[73] Black Velvet's former managing director Phil Stockley claimed that Bluestar was being aggressive and attempted to "squeeze them out" with its new Beep buses.

[76] However Black Velvet's managing director said that he would instead target Bluestar's more profitable services with them introducing the route 500, which would run off a similar direction to its former route B, though it would serve Chestnut Avenue before heading to Southampton; as well as the Fair Oak flyer to run between Eastleigh and Fair Oak.

[78] Black Velvet then undercut Bluestar in its bid for two college services between Eastleigh, Hiltingbury and Chandler's Ford and was awarded the contract on 19 February 2009.

[79] In May 2009, the MP for Eastleigh Chris Huhne accused Bluestar's behaviour of being appalling and called for new laws to allow the local authorities to regulate bus companies.

[80] Later in July 2009, he asked for an investigation into allegations of anti-competitive behaviour of Bluestar against Velvet's over their implementation and subsequent removal of extra services, which operated between Eastleigh and Fair Oak, to rival Velvet's service, the Fair Oak Flyer.

[80] The competition warring between Bluestar and Black Velvet later came to an end in March 2010 when Bluestar announced frequency cuts to its route 3 between Hedge End and Botley and made a deal with the latter to run a service to fill in the axed time slot with both of them accepting each other's tickets on the same route corridor.