YELLOW Buses had predicted it will be a popular streamlining of their service but on the morning of the company's shake-up, some passengers have been left stranded, late and annoyed.

Monday saw the biggest changes to the service in over a century, including new route numbers, a simplified fare structure, buses every five minutes on some routes and cuts and alterations to others.

Yellow Buses managing director Derek Lott said: "I am confident the changes will prove popular with the overwhelming majority of both existing and new passengers for Yellow Buses."

But leading up to the change, there have been a number of complaints, particularly from residents in some of the areas where there have been most alterations. Those included Fairmile in Christchurch where residents vowed to boycott the firm and took up a petition Throop and the Glenferness Avenue area in Bournemouth. And this morning the objections were still coming in.

Jeff Taylor, a care handler for First Assist on Richmond Hill, wrote to the company to say he would no longer be using its buses to travel into work from Townsend after the journey went via the Travel Interchange, took him an hour and cost him 60p more than before.

"Your company has taken a bus service and actually made it quicker, easier and cheaper for me to walk to work," he told them.

Cllr Ron Whittaker, who has previously voiced fears about the changes, said he saw eight people waiting on Glenferness Avenue on Monday morning for a service that no longer goes down that road. He offered a lift to those he could fit in his car. "It's diabolical, at a time where it's national policy to get people out of cars onto public transport," he said.

Mr Lott said the announcement of the new network was first made on May 11.

"Since then we've concentrated all our efforts on making sure our passengers are fully aware of the changes that took effect from Sunday," he said.

"This has included leaflets, roadshows, on-board publicity and promotions as well as printing 150,000 new timetables, changing the information at individual bus stops and launching a brand new website."

He added that the fare structure was now simpler and most customers will see their fares stay the same or cost less.

Bournemouth councillors will be debating the changes at a public meeting of the sustaining our environment scrutiny panel at 4pm on Wednesday (July 6), where residents will make deputations on the issue.