“In the Baltic countries and the former Soviet Union there was a lot more creativity in the bus stops than in Western Europe. I was quite amazed at how imagination was going into these edifices. In each town they’d put their own individual touch onto their local bus stop by hiring local artisans to decorate them. A lot of the architecture in the former Soviet Union is quite conservative and functional. What amazed me was that some of these shelters were not functional at all… A lot of these bus stops are in the absolute middle of nowhere, on some country road where there isn’t even a town close by. Some of them aren’t being used anymore and are run down and falling apart. I want to capture them before they’re lost forever.”

Here are a few samples. You can see them all at http://herwigphoto.com/. It’s a flash site so I can’t give a direct link to the page, you’ll have to go there and then click on Soviet Bus Stops and choose photos.

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This has brought to mind the Unst Bus Shelter, see here.

Stagecoach in Winchester have a very unhappy customer who complains that “Many a time have I come off of a Stagecoach bus bleeding or aching from bashing my knee as the driver pulls away before I have sat down”. His letters of complaint together with the replies from Richard Tyldsley, the Stagecoach Operations Manager at Winchester, are published on the unhappy customer’s web site.

Last year I tried to promote this blog with an advertisement on the side of a bus.

Now, courtesy of this site, I’ve got this enormous billboard in Times Square.

This single decker only seats 23, no standees, and can do 155 mph!

It doesn’t seem fully equipped yet, for example I can’t see a Wayfarer ticket machine. I also wonder how it would look in the livery of the company I currently drive for. I don’t think they’d consider placing an order until the company who make it produced one in our livery for evaluation.

The BBC made a Freedom of Information request about the types and number of complaints being made against bus drivers – full story here. These statistics are for London only but I wonder if the rest of the UK would be much different?

The top 3 positions are not unexpected. Number 4; Fare Issues does strike me as a bit odd unless they’re not really complaints against the driver but complaints against what the passenger sees as a high (but correct) price. The biggest surprise for me was the number 5 position; Refusing Wheelchair/Pushchair it even beats ‘Insufficient time to Board/Alig’ and ‘Vehicle Moved Off Too Quickly’ added together! Then again, if most wheelchair users have the same attitude and expectations as this young man then perhaps I should not be surprised. “Disabled people cannot be treated like this.” he says when he was unable to board a bus which already had another wheelchair occupying the allocated space. I’m sorry he had to wait for the next bus bus just the same as I’m sorry for able bodied people who have to wait for the next bus when the one they expected to catch is at full capacity for seated and standing passengers. I wonder if the able bodied left behind would say “It makes you feel extremely victimised.”?

Driver – Attitude/Rude Behaved 22,542
Driver – Failure to Stop/Not Picking Up 20,657
Driver – Poor/Dangerous Driving 10,997
Driver – Fares Issue 3,627
Driver – Refusing Wheelchair/Pushchair 1,551
Driver – Early run/late run 1,272
ZSERVICE/Not assigned 1,216
Driver – Insufficient time to Board/Alig 1,193
Driver – Engine run on stand 1,180
Driver – Deviate from Route 914
Driver – Discriminatory Behaviour 523
Driver – Radio/Phone/PA 274
Driver – Alleged Assault 241
Driver – Vehicle Moved Off Too Quickly 166
Driver – Smoking 165
Driver – Staff Smoking 137
Driver – Securing Wheelchair 56
Driver – Lack of Toilet facilities 33
Driver – Appearance 33

In total 66,000 complaints have been made in the last 3 years. During the same period 5,400,000,000 (5.4 billion) bus journeys were made in London which makes the complaint rate remarkably low.

Whilst searching for something else I stumbled upon this website which details how much Hampshire County Council spend with Stagecoach – £7,670,531 per year which equates to £767,053 per month. The payments are broken down and detail the category under which they’re paid and the category is the contract reference number. Using HCC’s own website the contract reference numbers are shown against the route they relate to. So, for example, it can be seen that the majority of Stagecoach Winchester depot’s contracts are all grouped under contract W235 which a look up then indicates brings them around £34,000 per month!

In September the bus subsidy cuts will come into effect reducing the £34,000 per month by possibly around a third. This comes on top of the loss of their largest single contract, Alton College, which was won by Go-Ahead who will be taking over in September. Tough times ahead methinks.