First Glasgow have confirmed that the 4A bus route in Eaglesham will now receive “operational priority” following concerns raised about the reliability of the service.
There have been ongoing reports that the bus service for the Eastwood village is regularly not turning up at scheduled times on the route and this is causing serious difficulties for people looking to leave and return to Eaglesham by bus.
In a written response to Eastwood MSP, Jackson Carlaw who has repeatedly raised concerns with First Glasgow about the reliability of the 4A service, the bus company’s Operations Director advised that the reprioritisation of the Eaglesham route means all possible efforts will now be made to protect it from further disruption.
The 4A Eaglesham bus route has been given this status because of it’s low frequency and after a further assessment of the service.
In August 2021, the 4A bus service was diminished with off-peak services from Monday to Saturday reducing on a temporary basis from two per hour to just the one because of a driver shortage.
Jackson Carlaw MSP for Eastwood said:
“I am continuing to receive a high volume of correspondence from constituents who are reporting the cancellation of far too many services on the 4A and this is clearly causing disruption to the lives of many local people.
“Residents in Eaglesham deserve to have a bus service that they can depend upon but the 4A does not seem to be offering the level of reliability that is required.
“It is vital that First Glasgow’s decision to mark the 4A as having operational priority does address the existing problem of cancellations and ensure that scheduled bus services are arriving for local people.
“It is now more than a year since the off-peak Monday to Saturday service was reduced and it is increasingly critical that First Glasgow seek to bring back the more expansive service.
“The longer this situation goes on, the risk is only increasing that what was meant to be a temporary service cutback unintentionally becomes a permanent and damaging change to local bus service provision in Eaglesham.”