“We have a constant increase in attendance, including during the winter season. This offer is meeting its audience.” This Thursday, December 19, in Paimpol, the company Transdev Guingamp Paimpol Agglomération, a subsidiary of Transdev, took stock of the 500 days of operation of line 4 of the GPA transport network. Deployed since April 2023 between Plounez and Beauport Abbey, the line was extended, in 2024, to Sainte-Barbe.
“Summer attendance is around 600 to 700 trips per month. A figure doubled compared to last year. And we are at 400 for the least busy months,” explains Hatim El Hardouz, for Transdev GPA. Figures that the manager considers entirely “encouraging”, “and which tend to be closer to those that the company can measure on one of the lines deployed in Guingamp”.
Significant potential
User feedback and analysis of their attendance habits have already given rise to adjustments over the past year. A late morning slot was therefore popular. Work on intermodality has been undertaken, in order to coordinate timetables with those of the trains. The station stop is one of the most used. Like the one in the shopping center. Or that of Beauport Abbey.
“As a tourist site, we have an interest in encouraging these modes of travel. »
The latter quickly seized the opportunity, as well as the potential offered by this new offer. A half-fare for visitors arriving by line 4 has been proposed. “We had 180 people in July and August,” says its director Jean-Charles Touzé. By emphasizing “the importance of also being supportive of this type of approach. We are stakeholders in the region and, as a tourist site, we have an interest in encouraging these modes of travel.” Especially since the car parks near the abbey are hardly expandable and are reaching saturation.
Expected improvements
Areas for improvement were also put forward. “The idea is to always offer better offers,” explains Transdev. Jacky Gouault, deputy mayor of Paimpol, also shares “reflections carried out with other elected officials from the canton’s municipalities”. The idea could be to connect them, via modifications and extensions of lines 4 and 24, which connect Paimpol to Arcouest. But also to have more timetables, for line 4, during the summer period.
Improvements that could see the light of day fairly quickly. Deliberations at the level of the Agglomeration are hoped for the month of June. It will remain to continue the deployment of soft connections between municipalities. They are essential to see progress, for example, in the use of electrically assisted bicycles, which everyone actively promotes. And for which there is also a public offer. “It is no longer even necessary to pick up the bikes in Guingamp, for subscribers,” recalls Transdev.
