This will be just a short post from my phone.
Just turned up at my bus stop to catch the 5.15 bus home. At about 5.14 two buses turn up, a 005 in front of a 004. Everyone gets on the 005, as do I. The bus driver doesn’t say a thing.
I sit (on a really hot bus by the way) and watch as the 004 with nobody at all on it pulls out to start its run. Everyone now waits in the hot bus for 10 minutes. Driver doesn’t say a thing.
Hopefully we’ll be on our way soon before I start to cook.
What idiots. Surely the driver of this bus should have told everyone he was not leaving for another 10 minutes, but that the bus behind was leaving immediately.
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That is the reason why I stopped catching buses about 5 years ago and now drive most of the time, or get the train!
It’s annoying when you get staff that Really Don’t Care. Sadly there are quite a few of them.
Trains aren’t exempt from them either, there are a few staff who don’t care about customer service when things go wrong, and I’ve seen one guard litter on her own train.
Yet in the same jobs, on the same pay, we also get the awesome ones we’ve all met that go the extra mile to make our journey a pleasant (and fun) one.
I would refuse to pay for that kind of service. When using the train I have had a number of times where I have done so (although admittedly it is usually a longer wait than that) Transport operators need to realise that they are providing a service and actions like this would scare away potential customers.
… refusing to pay is tricky when you have a monthly pass already …
It also more difficult when you paid upon entering the bus – the driver isn’t going to give you a refund….
All the more reason that Auckland buses get in-bus displays showing the next destinations and arrival times, along with the remaining dwell time i.e. along the lines of this
http://photo.tramscape.com/tram/zurich/090212.04.jpg
these also then switch to an image showing the upcoming tram/bus/train connections upon arrival at all stops.
And please no more of these McDonald and Starbucks sponsored ones that the Auckland Link bus has that seem to be more about advertising and less about actually showing what stop is coming up!
All it would have taken would be for the driver to say to the passengers “oh no, I don’t leave for another 10 minutes, the 5.15 bus is right behind me”.
I guess I should have known that the 5.15 bus was a 004 and not a 005. However, I did think that the 5.05 bus might have been a bit late as there were quite a lot of passengers waiting for it when I arrived.
I suppose it was a fairly minor inconvenience, I just wonder whether it’s symptomatic of the way Auckland’s PT operates. The little details make a big difference.
Just email Mike Lee. As I suspect you well know, he’s an extraordinary politician in that he both believes in political accountabilty and actually investigates this sort of stuff up and demands responses. To quote him: ‘we have a culture problem that tolerates inefficiency’ (this was in response to a Veolia/ARTA issue). Of course, nothing much will happen but you should hear eventually from NZ Bus’s pr monitors (if they are still employed) and, possibly, something might impact on those persons at ARTA responsible for overseeing the performance of the private operators. Sadly you can be assured that the situation will worsen under the unaccountable proposed Auckland Transport agency.
Mike reads this blog regularly enough so I’m sure he’ll come across it eventually 🙂
The most infuriating bus experience I had was when I got a bus heading down New North Road. I got on and stuck my one stage 10 trip into the machine and the driver dutifully pushed the button and said nothing. It was not until I got to Kingsland and pushed the button that the driver refused to stop and informed me that I was on an express bus. He wasn’t interested in the fact that we had both made a stuff up and I was forced to stay on the bus till Mt Albert, meaning I needed to wait for a return bus to Kingsland and pay another fare. I complained to NZ Bus and actually had a call from someone saying they wanted to put the issue on the driver’s file. So I don’t think its a complete waste of time complaining. Jarbury you should have got the bus number and time of the bus and put in a complaint.
Well I know quite a few people from ARTA read this blog, so I guess they’ll come across it eventually. Working out who was driving the 5.15 “004” route and the 5.25 “005” should be pretty easy.
I can’t imagine Auckland bus drivers have much job satisfaction so in a way I don’t blame some of them hating their jobs. This is no excuse of course just that driving a bus in Auckland has a stigma attached to it and will never attract many people passionate about the job until the view of bus drivers change.
That’s certainly the case. I think generally the friendliness of bus drivers has increased a lot in recent years – they do say “hi” to you when you board the bus, and some do seem genuinely concerned about doing a good job.
My main issue is about lack of communication though. Today’s situation was just poor communication, while another thing that really annoys me – the fact that Link Bus drivers never tell you how long you have to wait at Victoria Park – could also easily be fixed via better communication.
I just caught the 12.01 train from Wellington station home after Pheonix game and had to stand on the platform in the cold and rain for 15mins until tranzmetro decided to open the doors. When the driver and guard came at 11.55 they found the train was locked and had to run after the guards of the train that had just arrived to get some keys. If I had known, I would have stayed in the station, but the gates were up and my ticket got clipped when entering the platform. You would think if they were going to send us onto the platform on a cold rainy night, they would have the doors open and the heaters running!
It was all a bit of a mess but I got to my destination in the end…
And how, exactly, will that kind of driver behaviour swing us behind their push to earn more than the minimum wage?