A Cardiff bus company has announced timetable changes for one of their popular buses, causing concern amongst passengers. Adventure Travel announced that as of Sunday, July 23 several major changes will be made to their C1 bus timetable.
The C1 bus travels from Culverhouse Cross to Pontprennau, passing through Ely, Canton, Cardiff city centre, Roath, Penylan, Llanedeyrn and Pentwyn.
The announcement made on Tuesday, June 27, confirmed the following changes :
- Frequency reduced from every 15 minutes to every 20 minutes
- Late journeys will be removed
- Very early buses will be removed
- Increased running time on all journeys
- No Sunday service
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This comes after deputy climate change minister Lee Waters published a statement regarding government funding for bus services in Wales. He said: "We are making £46m available from bus budgets to support BES and the Bus Transition Fund arrangements for the whole financial year."
However, Adventure Travel claim that they were unsuccessful in securing the funding because "much of the route competes with another service". The company said the changes to the C1 bus service are "necessary" to ensure that the service is financially viable, but many regular passengers are not happy with the updates.
One regular passenger of the C1 bus told WalesOnline that the announcement has made her worry about getting her son to and from school. She said: "It's affected us a lot and making me worried. I do hope they bring back the 15 minutes service as sometimes two buses come at a time because the first bus is always packed.
"Now they have limited the service I don't even think we'll be able to even get on the bus now. [The] only options I'll have is to try it, if not [he'll] have to completely move school."
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As the C1 bus runs from Culverhouse Cross, many colleagues of the supermarkets there rely on the service to get to work and home. M&S worker Tomos says that the changes will affect the way he travels to work. He said: "The changes happening with the C1 service would mean that I wouldn’t be able to get to work easily on a Sunday or get home easily when we close at 9pm (8pm on Saturday).
"I would have to walk about 20 minutes down to Ely to catch a 17/18 or wait 30 minutes or more to either catch a 96 or X2 bus into town to then get to Gabalfa. That entails me commuting probably shy of an hour and a half to two hours to get home.
"The only good thing to come from these changes is the change of frequency, at 20 minutes frequency the bus drivers have more time to run the route and become more reliable."
Under a post announcing the changes from Adventure Travel, many passengers voiced their frustrations and concerns. One stated: "No late services and no Sunday service. I know you are cutting down but that is ridiculous maybe one an hour."
Another complained: "This is ridiculous Adventure Travel you won't run on Sunday now and reducing the buses during the evening. Are you going to reduce the price of your weekly and four weekly passes as you won't run for one day?"
Adventure Travel told WalesOnline: "Regrettably, we have had to reduce the frequency of the C1 route to ensure that it is financially viable without Government support. These changes match supply with demand and will ensure that the new timetable can run reliably.
"Whilst passenger numbers have seen a gradual increase post-Covid, we have seen a much slower recovery in concessionary travellers. Alongside this decrease in income from passenger fares, we are also having to contend with rapidly increasing costs.
"Adjusting timetables is never an easy decision, but we would like to note that the new C1 timetable has reliability improvements built in. The new running times will coincide with reduced 20mph speed limits, so we fully expect the service to be far more dependable from July 24 onwards." The new C1 timetable will be released in July, closer to the date of the changes.
The Welsh Government released a joint statement regarding the new bus funding with Welsh Government, TfW, WLGA, Association of Transport Co- ordinating Officers (ATCO), Confederation of Passenger Transport and Coach and Bus Association Cymru. It said: "We believe the funding available will ensure that the majority of the current services will be protected across Wales. Although some services may change to reflect different travel patterns following the pandemic."
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