(22 Sep 2022, 5:12 pm)Jimmi wrote COVID was likely one of the final nail in the coffin for ZAP (and many other services) although from my experiences from using the service over the years it's never been particularly busy, always carried in the region of 20-30 pax max whenever I've caught it and at least 80% of those will have been concession pass holders, may as well have bought single deckers if they felt the need to buy new stock as I think I've only seen it remotely close to full once or twice. The post-COVID reduction in frequency from half hourly to hourly certainly won't have helped bring the passengers back either.
I've always thought of CITYZAP as more of a vanity project to Hornby than anything else, I feel some other companies would've binned off it ages ago and not bought specifically high spec new buses for it. I do wonder if ZAP would've continued for much longer had the opportunity to take over operation of the X98/X99 not come up especially as they can directly redeploy all the buses from ZAP onto it.
I still feel bus companies are relying too heavily on route branding, fancy timetable leaflets and gimmicks to try and and gain/retain passengers which do work to a point but it can only go so far and I see argubly little benefit to forking out for all these things like outside design agencies to design liveries and feel the money could be better utilised elsewhere.
Sounds right as it doesn't have anywhere near as many single seats as the B7TLs did.
Personally I don't actually think Covid was here.
It was the reduction in some fares with Northern and the brand new Class 195 trains that put the nail in imo. You can use the York to Blackpool service which takes 32 minutes (twice as quick) for £1 more paying full price off peak and if you buy advance tickets, heck even buying a ticket for 7am tomorrow now or even in 15 minutes from now it's only £6 for a single which works out the same price.
There's no reason for anyone to use it quite literally unless you like sitting on buses for the hell of it especially considering it stops nowhere between York and Leeds and arguably the train station is more central than the bus station in Leeds anyway and the Class 195 have everything you get on any bus plus a toilet, better ride, no traffic, tables and so on.
It's very different to Newcastle to Stockton / Middlesbrough up here where it's Class 156 trains and they go for a merry jaunt around the world with capacity problems.