GEORGE TOWN, July 3 — RapidPenang has decided to continue with the eight existing bus routes previously planned to discontinue.

RapidPenang chief operations officer Mohd Azmi Abdullah said the company initially considered reducing the number of buses for some routes and ending some routes entirely.

“This is due to the financial burden we are facing as the ridership for these routes were too low to cover costs,” he said.

He said some routes have as few as one or two riders per trip, which was unsustainable.

“It was not economical so we proposed to stop plying eight routes but now, after discussions with Prasarana, after the state government’s appeal, we decided not to go ahead with this proposal,” he said.

He said the buses will ply all routes as usual.

“The ridership trend is still dropping but we hope with the launch of the rest of the CAT feeder bus routes, it may increase ridership,” he said in a joint press conference with Penang Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow.

He said the average ridership was now about 80,000 passengers per day.

Earlier, Chow said the state government was against RapidPenang’s proposal to stop plying several routes in Penang.

He said there is a need to encourage the public to take public transportation and cutting out routes will not help.

“Many people without their own transportation rely on public buses so we look at this seriously and had appealed to RapidPenang to reconsider such proposals,” he said.

On the CAT (Congestion Alleviation Transport) feeder buses, Chow said the state already rolled out four routes: two on the island and two on the mainland.

“We will launch the remaining eight routes this month,” he said.

The feeder buses are free public transportation, commissioned by the state government, that go in loops around each area.

Chow said the response for the Air Itam route was encouraging with an average of 6,000 to 7,000 riders per day.

The other routes, Balik Pulau recorded an average of about 200 passengers a day, Bukit Mertajam 300 passengers a day and Nibong Tebal 150 passengers a day.

He said it is not easy to encourage the public to take public transport as many preferred the flexibility of their own transport.

He hoped that these free feeder buses will encourage more to take public transport in the state.