Do you complain to your local bus company

nick14me

Recently I have had problems with my local bus company when busses dont show up or arrive in three's, does anyone else ring their bus company and complain on a regular basis ,and what results have you got??

saintjanet

I tried to travel by bus to a rugby match,never again!!The buses run every ten mins.during the day,and every twenty mins.in the evening,or so they tell you.

I had no trouble going,caught a bus within a few mins.On the way home one bus passed us as we walked for six miles and he did not stop,even though i stuck out my arm after running to the next bus stop!!

Anyway i complained by email,letter,and tried in vain to get through by phone.I did not even receive a reply,let alone an excuse.Think i will go by car next time.

rjm2k1

I used to travel to work in York using the park and ride, unfortunatly my stop on the way out was the last pickup and everytime a bus came past it was normally full and didn't bother stopping (the drivers are supposed to save some space by telling people to wait for the next bus at earlier stops). It wasn't bad in summer as it gave me half an hours excercise walking back to the park and ride, but in winter when it's cold and raining it was too much! I complained to the company, a bloke from the company stood at the stop for an hour or 2 with his clipboard, the drivers saw him and always stopped to pick up passengers. As soon as he was gone, it was back to the same situation. I gave up and started to drive all the way in and park on side streets. The situation got even worse when they added extra (none park and ride) stops for regular residents at which the P&R buses stopped, thus filling them even more and making it pointless as far as keeping cars out of the centre went.

Voyager2002

A couple of things to note:
some bus journeys are subsidised by your local council (the timetable will say if they are), so if you are being let down by a subsidised service the council will certainly be interested since they are paying for it. This is likely to apply to park-and-ride services in particular;
all bus services are regulated by the Traffic Commissioners, who can and do impose hefty fines on bus companies that give poor service. On one occasion I made a complaint about a bus firm by writing to the relevant traffic commissioner, and sending a copy to the manager of the company concerned. I got a cheque for compensation by return of post!

Crabman

Voyager2002 wrote:

A couple of things to note:
some bus journeys are subsidised by your local council (the timetable will say if they are), so if you are being let down by a subsidised service the council will certainly be interested since they are paying for it. This is likely to apply to park-and-ride services in particular;
all bus services are regulated by the Traffic Commissioners, who can and do impose hefty fines on bus companies that give poor service. On one occasion I made a complaint about a bus firm by writing to the relevant traffic commissioner, and sending a copy to the manager of the company concerned. I got a cheque for compensation by return of post!

Worcester's buses are terrible, especially the 44 up London Rd :rolleyes: When I used to get the bus in the mornings it could never be relied on to turn up/stop for me. I complained but was fobbed off - told that they are reliant on customers for business or they will go by other means of transport, so they have to give a good service... which is tripe as most people who use the bus can't use any other form of transport, thus HAVE to use them :rolleyes:

Contains_Mild_Peril

I've tried complaining, but had no reply. I don't often get buses in my own town because everything's within walking distance, but I sometimes visit Glasgow, where the buses annoy me. I've lost count of the number of times I've been standing at a bus stop, holding my hand out clearly indicating my intention to board the approaching bus, and the driver hasn't stopped. It's bad enough when it's during the day and I have to wait maybe 20 mins for the next bus, but once it was late at night and the driver, who couldn't possibly have failed to see my son (then about 10) and myself, left us there in really nasty weather to wait an hour for the next bus.
If that wasn't bad enough, another time, the last bus at night didn't appear at all (either that or had been and gone several minutes early), so we had to phone my sister and she spent ages searching the internet to find out how close we could get to Blantyre (where she lived) on another bus, then when we arrived at a bus stop in the middle of nowhere, she had to phone us a taxi, which didn't turn up either, so she had to get us another one. We finally arrived about 2am and over £6 out of pocket. Again, failing to pick up passengers at the scheduled time and place is bad enough when there are more buses they can catch later, but when it's the last bus at night, it's absolutely indefensible.

nick14me

Great joy
Had a letter today , they are going to put more inspectors on the route I use to check on the drivers and also will be checking the timings of all the busses on the no7 route in weston-super-mare. Complaining persistently DOES work. I hope that something comes of it