DRIVERS on Eastleigh's evening bus services now have mobile phones to keep them in constant contact with their control room.

With Solent Blue Line's Eastleigh control now manned until close of service, drivers can report delays or incidents on their routes right up to 45 minutes past midnight Monday to Saturday.

Operations director Peter Shelley says: "This is a big leap forward in communications for us. Evening service drivers will be able to ring Eastleigh control or we contact them in the event of a traffic delay or incident.

"Alternatively if a customer rings up and we do not have the information we can contact the driver on his mobile phone."