Southern to double services on some routes in Sussex and Hampshire

Southern believes changes will encourage customers to make more journeys and attract new passengers

A rail operator will be doubling the number of services it runs on some routes in Sussex and Hampshire.

Southern Rail will increase services between Brighton and Worthing and Chichester on the West Coastway route.

There will also be more services between London and Portsmouth via Gatwick Airport, the rail company says.

Southern says the changes will encourage more rail passengers, and so reduce the number of cars using the roads.

Jenny Saunders, Southern's customer services director, said: "We are making these changes to give passengers more trains and many more seats on our more popular routes.

"Services will be much more frequent, more punctual, faster in some cases, and more reliable right across the network."

Southern says the main changes are:

• Services every half hour from London to Portsmouth via Gatwick, with services extended to Portsmouth Harbour

• Services between Southampton and Brighton will double in frequency from hourly to half-hourly to meet demand

• There will be a new hourly, all-stations Brighton to Chichester service via Littlehampton, linking Brighton and Littlehampton with an all-day direct service for the first time in 15 years

• The number of trains between Brighton, Worthing and Chichester will be doubling from two to four an hour throughout the day

To make way for the new services, some routes will be withdrawn, such as the hourly service between Southampton and London, with customers now needing to change at Barnham, Southern says.

The direct routes between Littlehampton and Bognor Regis, and Littlehampton and Portsmouth & Southsea will also require a change at Barnham from the next timetable change on 3 June.

The new timetable is expected to be available in online journey planners from 11 March.

Follow BBC South East on Facebook, on X, and on Instagram. Send your story ideas to [e-mail].