To respond:
Didn't realise I'd touched such a nerve
- and after saying drop the matter, you then go on about it! I take the point about the difference between the club ownership and the fans wishes - really, I do having similarly suffered. I was merely drawing the parallel between bus company ownership/management and the drivers. Oh, and before you suffer altitude sickness on your high horse about having "no idea" about your pain.... I've had much more to deal with following my team!!!
I wanted to try to put the matter to bed, you see. And don't accuse me of being on my 'high horse'. Just because your club's been through worse doesn't give you a right to be insensitive. In any case, let's bury this here.
As for historic frequencies, the half hourly pattern had been there since time in memoriam, from when it was a joint WYRCC/EYMS through into sole operation by WY and then the various changes until the Transdev era. That the frequency was uplifted to every 15 mins was unlikely to be sustainable - it was a short term distortion and one that has been reflected 1000's of times as operators respond to competitive incursions. Sometimes, a frequency increase (whether by competition or not) can sufficiently stimulate demand as to make it sustainable - see the Ripon to Harrogate section of the 36. However, often it is not and frequencies settle back to the historic, sustainable level. That is the reality, irrespective of how used to increased frequencies people get in the short term.
I don't debate that point. However, it is always worth mentioning that public perception of the reduction in frequency is hardly going to be affected by historic frequency levels. If they give you an 'improvement' - however unwarranted - and then take it away again, you can't expect people to be
pleased.
If Transdev need to make cutbacks.... well any axe will fall where it needs to. Now, that could be CityZap YK but NONE of us know the financial performance of that route or, indeed, any of the Transdev empire. Could just as easily be a rationalisation of Rosso or further trimming in Lancashire?
I have a feeling that CityZap Leeds-York would be somewhere that Transdev looked at for cutbacks. Just a hunch, mind, but I wouldn't bet on that route still being here in five years' time. Let me explain why.
There is a degree of duplication on the Leeds-York corridor, with CityZap, the long-established route via Tadcaster that Coastliner now runs and the rail route too. To my mind, the CityZap represents a compromise between the latter two; faster than Coastliner, cheaper than the train, but neither the fastest nor the cheapest (a jack of all trades, but a master of none). It also doesn't stop anyway apart from the bus station in Leeds (unless this has changed), which is inconvenient for those who'd rather be at the eastern end of town. Anyone who wants to be in Leeds or York quickly will probably go for the train (TransPennine and CrossCountry services take half as long as the CityZap to reach either city), and anyone who wants the cheapest fare would probably go for the Coastliner anyway. The CityZap is therefore targeting the people in-between, but
will its market be sustainable indefinitely? Look at the X64 and the 743. One was brought in to challenge the other, but now
neither are running anymore - once one went, the other was ditched. Transdev didn't
want to keep it.
The CityZap may well be doing fantastically. We don't know. But I think that it
is something that Transdev could afford to lose simply because they have the luxury of that duplication. Get rid of the CityZap and they
still have a monopoly on York-Leeds bus services. Those who don't want to travel by rail can still take the Coastliner; true, it'll take 20 minutes longer, but
it's been like that with no fast Leeds-York service since time immemorial - so nobody will mind, as you yourself said earlier. Right? Also: although Transdev would lose some passengers back to the trains if they ditched the CityZap, they were doing perfectly all right without that custom
before the service was set up. And they could easily just strip out all the off-peak buses and still operate the CityZap at peak times - not convenient for everyone, but an effective way of reducing the service while it still retains some usefulness.
I retain my right to be sceptical, as I'm sure others do to. It's important that we
do continue to scrutinise Transdev and Connexions - after all, if we don't do it, who on Earth else is going to?