'another day on the buses'

Is how I came upon this game on the Arriva website. The actual circuitous route which led me to this I’ll save for another posting because it includes several diversions along the way!

This game was the previous winner of an Arriva competition to design a game, this year’s entry form is here.

Here’s a link the Megabus Mega Ride game which I posted about in August 2009.

“The game, Mega Ride, which is the first multiplayer game produced by TAMBA, challenges players to play against the computer or against friends by creating a room where others can join a motorway bus race. Choosing between two popular routes – Glasgow to London or Leeds to Portsmouth – Mega Ride encourages players to collect passengers at regular bus stops, avoiding road obstacles and picking up Megabus tickets along the way. At the end of each game scores can be entered on to a leaderboard, and players achieve a driver status based on their accuracy.”

Around 6 weeks ago I wrote about child fares. On my last trip to Salisbury today a young guy boarded the buses and asked for a child return to Salisbury. He certainly looked older than 15 but before I could say anything he said “I’ve got proof of age, all the drivers want to charge me the adult fare”. He then held out his passport. I guess most drivers, myself included most of the time, would think that someone who’s gone to that trouble must be genuine and simply issue a child ticket. Today it was different, I’d picked up no passengers at all up to that point and I was in danger of running early so anything to delay things would be of help. I took the passport and opened it at the back page …….. Date of Birth – 16 September 1992. “You’re nearly 18!” I said. “Child fares are for under 18′s, aren’t they?” he said. I then told him that once you’re 16 full fare is payable, he seemed genuinely shocked and surprised. So much so that I almost felt bad charging him full fare. I honestly believe the guy was genuine in his belief but it seems that for nearly two years he’d got away with child fares by offering his passport which nobody then checked.

Following yesterday’s Blogwatch posting on the Omnibuses2.0 blog (today simply renamed Omnibuses) 101 readers clicked through to read ‘another day on the buses’! This just goes to show how large a following the Omnibuses blog has – well done and a Happy 5th Birthday.

I guess for the the majority of the 101 it was quite likely a first visit here. They wouldn’t have bothered clicking the link in the posting if they came here regularly? So, welcome and I hope you enjoy what you see :-)

I came a across this website having seen it referenced in a comment to a posting on Omnibuses2.0 The site is basically about the old Manvers Street bus station in Bath which was demolished in July 2007. The page I’ve linked to is about customer complaints and it’s a gem. I instantly recognised one our Winchester drivers! I had no idea he’d worked for FirstBus but he must have, in my mind I can picture him doing this. Here’s the complaint.

Lauren McKenna, 22, of Manchester.

Just 6 months after Amy Wootten of Bristol was proven to have lied about being thrown off a bus for breastfeeding her six-week-old baby we have Lauren McKenna making the same claim and also being proved a liar. About the only difference between the two stories is that the first involved FirstBus and the latest was an attempt to get a Stagecoach driver dismissed.

Here’s some video of Lauren McKenna making her false claim.