Transdev has said its Cityzap Leeds to York service will run for the final time on November 19th
An announcement on their website says
"We created Cityzap as a fresh new concept in city to city travel back in 2016.
It captured the imagination of car users, rail travellers and more as it reinvented travel between Leeds and York. In that time we’ve carried over a million customer journeys. So confident in its future, we made the decision at the start of 2020 to invest over £1.4million in our new SkyClass fleet.
Then, COVID happened.
None of us could predict the scale in which our lives changed. This affected travel patterns and how, and when, people made their journeys. Working from home has severely impacted the demand for commuting into cities regularly, and many concessionary customers are still yet to return to bus travel as often as they used to.
This has had a profound impact on Cityzap. Customer recovery on many routes is as much as 110% compared to 2019 where we have encouraged people back to bus – and new users too - but on Cityzap it has been as low as 50% in recent months. As you can imagine, this trend can’t continue and is unsustainable to manage.
Like every business at the moment, our fuel and energy costs are rising fast - while even at our value for money fares - which are much cheaper than the train between York and Leeds - leisure customers are now less likely to make fewer discretionary trips for shopping, days out and so on.
This could not have been anticipated when we introduced Cityzap in 2016, nor as we moved beyond the pandemic, but is the reality we now must respond to. The combined impact of the Covid pandemic and sharply rising energy costs are being felt by every bus operator in the country.
This all means - sadly - that Cityzap will no longer run after 19 November. The SkyClass fleet will begin to disappear from Cityzap after 25 September to prepare them for use elsewhere. Comfortable buses will replace them for now until 19 November. Our investment will not be wasted and will see use elsewhere within West Yorkshire as we make the most of our investment in public transport and seek to keep elements of our vision alive that the demand for fast travel into our key cities is there.
We thank our colleagues for making Cityzap an award winning pioneer and delivering for each day. They will all continue to have secure jobs with us. And, most of all, we thank you - our amazing customers - for zapping with us. It’s been a great journey - and we hope we’ll continue to see you on Coastliner which will serve Leeds and York as normal"
Check the Coastliner timetable here.
