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Edwin Phillips reads an urgent mainstream media release from Cardiff Bus, after we disclosed that officials had refused to give The Eye figures for the company’s number of passengers because the information was “commercially sensitive” amid revelations that bus use is falling in major cities across the developed world.
From: Passenger Information Statistics Service (PISS) Cardiff Bus.
To: Press Office Of Regions (POOR).
We request that all Editors adhere to our policy of not divulging bus passenger numbers.
The fact we have refused to give that scurrilous website The Eye those figures should be your lead.
Our media operation was quite correct in telling those appalling so-called journalists: “Unfortunately, Cardiff Bus aren’t able to give out commercially sensitive information such as passenger numbers”.
The numbers offered on our website should also be ignored.
The statement must be disregarded by journalists, when we say: “We now carry 100,000 passengers every day on 3,000 journeys covering 27,000 miles”.
And add: “That’s an annual equivalent of going to the moon and back 20 times!”.
It may appear, erroneously, that we are optimistic about our future, with comments on our website that: “Cardiff bus is busier than ever today, providing capital transport for our capital city.”
Only journalists in the mainstream media, not those on websites like The Eye, can know the truth when it has been reported that bus passenger numbers are in decline in other major cities around the world.
It seems that in London bus journeys are down by five per cent since the 2014 – 15 fiscal year, unfortunately despite population growth last year of around one per cent and a rise in employment of 3.3 per cent.
Sad to say in New York bus trips were lower than expectations in the first four months of this year by 7.6 per cent.
Apparently in Toronto adult trips on public transport have fallen every year since 2014, and regrettably in Madrid the use of public transport has fallen markedly, even allowing for the fact that Spain has been in recession.
We at Cardiff Bus deplore the possible causes for this decline.
The more walking and cycling we see in Cardiff in this weather, is unhealthy for our business.
Unhappily in Cardiff more cycle lanes have appeared and a new public cycle system has been installed in the city, where bicycles are taken from one area to another.
This system is called ‘nextbike’ and, lamentably, more than 50 bicycles have been stationed near City Hall, Cardiff Central train station, the Bute Building of Cardiff University in Cathays Park, and at County Hall in Cardiff Bay.
Our prices and journey times are second to none in competing with them as our timetables show.
A bus journey from Barrage Walkway, in Cardiff Bay, to Cardiff Central station will take only around 21 minutes according to Google Maps – excluding waiting times.
To make a return journey, a commuter could buy a ‘Day-to-Go’ ticket, and it is perfectly reasonable to charge a single adult rider £3.80.
It is completely irrelevant that the journey on ‘nextbike’ would cost far less, or free on other bicycles, and that the same journey would take a commuter about 17 minutes on a bike.
Increasing numbers of cycle networks could mean people use buses far less, and for that reason this rise should obviously be resisted.
It is naturally a concern to everyone that Cardiff’s cycle network is more than 58 miles long with an additional 3–6 miles completed each year.
So let’s be open about this information, and not keep it “commercially sensitive”.
Tomorrow – we reveal how a crooked ‘property expert’ exposed by The Eye is trying to remove our reports about him on the internet, and how he launched a tirade of abuse at us after a trail on social media which did not name him.
Check your knowledge of today’s events as revealed over the last few months on The Eye, with our brilliant interactive quiz: [viralQuiz id=1]
