Yesterday it was announced by Transdev that the popular Ramsbottom bus service Red Express will no longer be operating every 30 minutes.
A quote from the announcement states:
Red Express has been performing better than it ever has before since we
made the change, but quite simply, we are not carrying enough people
outside of the morning and evening rush hours to keep Red Express going
in its current form.
It’s not clear what passenger numbers would have been enough, despite it now performing better than ever. It was, however mentioned on the Bury Times just last week that:
Fifteen per cent more people are said to be using their services, following Transdev’s takeover
A spokesperson for Transdev has been in touch with this quote:
The 15% growth figure you’ve quoted relates to routes taken over as part of our purchase of Rosso. Red Express is actually part of our existing Blackburn operations, and isn’t a Rosso route – we made changes to the route to divert it through Rammy in order to create a direct link to Manchester, and of course, Rosso tickets are valid on Red Express now that Rosso is part of the Transdev family.
The new service pattern through the daytime better reflects the number of customers we have travelling outside of the peaks, and should hopefully create a much more solid ground from which to build upon for the future.
What’s going to change?
Sunday 1 September, Red Express will become hourly during the daytime, Monday to Saturday…
We’ll be maintaining our current levels of service during the busy
morning and afternoon peaks, with a bus roughly every 30 mins.
How will this affect you? Is it better to have a service, even hourly than risk losing it due to profits?
