Once again, Transdev are proposing to cancel a much needed bus service through Edenfield. This time last year, users of the X44 bus service launched an online and written petition to save the commuter services into Manchester.
The petition was successful and after a short interruption to service, Transdev announced that they would be providing a new service, the X8 from Burnley to Manchester.
Unfortunately it now seems that the X8 isn’t paying its way and Transdev are looking to cancel the service from 27th October. Despite the fact that the X8 offers a much faster service to Manchester than the X43 from Rawtenstall it seems to be underused.
[Image credit: “DSCN3567” by Clive A Brown on Flickr]
In my opinion, the failure of the X8 service is likely to be down to the fact that this service hasn’t been promoted or marketed other than via passenger word of mouth. Use of this service does seem to be growing and last week there were 22 passengers on the 0730 service to Manchester. On days that I don’t take the bus to Manchester, I have overtaken the X43 and seen fewer than half a dozen passengers on the lower deck.
Transdev often send their X43 buses through Edenfield when the A56 bypass is busy; in view of the fact that using the route through Edenfield would use less diesel, only take a few minutes longer than the bypass route and may generate some additional revenue it seems nonsensical that they are proposing to withdraw these services completely.
The signatories below would urge Transdev to maintain some form of commuter service for people living between Rawtenstall, Edenfield and Shuttleworth, and at the very least engage in some form of dialogue with their customers before making these decisions.
[emailpetition id=”1″]
[signaturelist id=”1″]
