If ever there is a bus company held up as a shining example of good customer relations, communications and service it is Trent Barton. Trent Barton pride themselves on the friendliness, helpfulness and general good nature of their drivers who know many of their regulars by their first name. They proudly have a Wall of Fame where drivers are acknowledged for what they do. For example “On a Friday evening in January a distressed lady got on Adrian’s H1 bus at Heanor. She explained to him that she had just lost her purse and that she needed to get to Derby. Adrian came up trumps with a free ride into Derby, and even provided her with £20 of his own money so she could get home safely, which she returned back to Adrian a few days later. How’s that for service!”.

So it was with complete dismay that I read the BBC news report of a young lady who’d been refused travel on the last bus of the night because she was 20p short of the required fare. She started to walk home and was then raped on the way. The bus company was Trent Barton.

Absolutely tragic on two fronts. Tragic in the extreme for the young lady and tragic in a different way for Trent Barton. All the hard work of employing those who they they think are the best drivers, then allowing them freedoms none of the national operators give to make their own decisions. I heard another story of a Trent Barton driver who’s bus broke down down buying all the passengers a cup of tea at a nearby cafe while they waited for a repalcement bus. He put the receipt in to the company who actually thanked him. Try doing that as a driver for one of the nationals!

A lot of Trent Barton’s hard work and investment blown by one ‘stupid’ driver. I’m sure that there must still be a pool of goodwill for Trent Barton but this goes to show just how one ill judged moment can ruin so much hard work.

There’s a rather sad story here about a particularly stupid bus driver who just kept on digging himself deeper and deeper into a problem unitl there was no way out. It started very simply when he, incorrectly, claimed that the passenger’s concessionary bus pass wasn’t valid at the current time. The passenger then explained that the rules changed in April, most driver’s would begin to think “Am I certain what I said is correct?” The next spade full of digging was to switch the engine off and just sit there. Further excavations continued as he tried to enroll the assistance of other passengers to take his side. Having dug yourself in this deeply it would be quite difficult but not impossible to climb out of the hole – be humble, apologetic and hope for the best! But no, this driver was intent on digging his way to a new job in Australia, he refused to speak to First Customer Services who the passenger had got on her mobile phone. Customer Services had to contact the driver’s depot and they in turn radioed the driver to tell him that the customer was correct in what they said. The driver’s hole digging had taken 20 minutes.

Nobody likes to admit they’re wrong, or even possibly wrong, but there are times when you have to swallow pride and let things just pass over you. You don’t hold up a bus for 20 minutes just because you think someone shouldn’t be travelling. You tell the passenger that you believe what you say is correct but will check it with the company when you get back to the depot, then get on with the job of driving the bus.

The Public Notices in my local newspaper usually related to insolvency, planning applications etc. Today there’s a bit of a surprise Public Notice, Transport for South Hampshire Better Bus Area Fund has been awarded £4.5 million of Dept. for Transport funding.

Expressions of Interest are invited from bus operators currently operating in South Hampshire who wish to bid to deliver tho following bus enhancements within the period of 1st June 2012-31st march 2014:-
– On Bus Wi-Fi
– Next Stop Audio & Visual Announcements
– LED Lighting
– Internal Bus Refurbishment

The closing date for expressions of interest is 1700 hrs on Friday 1st June 2012. With only 6 working days in which to try and grab a slice of £4.5m I expect there will be lots of “Do not disturb” signs on bus company management doors.

This one is for Charmin toilet paper!

More like this here.

That’s the New York City Mass Transit Authority which runs bus and subway services within New York. The bus service operates in all five boroughs of New York City, employing over 4300 buses on 219 routes. The subway network is the 7th largest in the world with over 400 stations and 209 miles of routes.

The cost of access to this vast network? $29 (GBP£17.90) for a 7 day unlimited use Metrocard. Of course you don’t have to buy a weekly ticket, individual rides cost $2.25 (GBP£1.39) each and allow transfers between train and buses. Although we were only there for 6 days the weekly ticket offered us the best value even though we didn’t use one day of its validity. Anyway we did our utmost to get full value and probably made a total of around 30-40 subway and bus journeys.

The subway is easy to understand and use, the only slight drawback is that in Manhattan most lines run north south which limits things when you want to cross east west. Although we had a subway station about 5 minutes walk from our hotel in Queens we usually used the bus even though it took a little longer. I think you feel more ‘local’ when you travel by bus :-) A few interesting things about the bus. Firstly drivers handle no money, passengers must either put $2.25 in coins into the hopper (exact amount only) or you feed in a Metrocard which is read and then returned to you. Almost without exception the drivers don’t seem to consider that it’s necessary to say ‘hello’ or ‘goodbye’ to anyone. I didn’t let this defeat me and wished every one of them a Good Morning/Afternoon etc and even managed to get a response a couple of times :-) Up to three children can travel free when accompanied by an adult. Interestingly children are not defined by age but must be less than 44 inches (1.12 metres) in height. Certainly easy to administer if you’ve got a 44 inch mark on the bus wall but a bit unfair on those who are naturally tall for their age.

The bus floors have an unusual floor covering in that it looks littered and dirty while actually it’s clean. On my first bus trip I actually tried to move with my foot some of the markings on the floor because I thought they were bits of rubbish. Here’s a picture of the floor.

Many subway stations are decorated with colourful subway ceramic plaques and tile mosaics. Of these, many take the form of signs, identifying the station’s location. Much of this ceramic work was in place when the subway system originally opened on October 27, 1904.

And finally one method of transport not available with a Metrocard, the space shuttle. It was flown into New York on the back of a NASA Boeing 747 where it will become a museum exhibit. This is the best shot I could get of it from the window of a moving bus as we passed JFK Airport.

If you look back through this blog you’ll see that we always go away at this time of year to celebrate ny birthday. Well, this year it’s one of those ‘milestone’ birthdays so I thought something a bit special was called for …. in a few hours time we’re off to New York for 6 days!

I’ve been before but this time we intend to do things which we haven’t got round to before like visit Coney Island and Brighton Beach. The High Line has also opened since I was last there and I was unaware of the Roosevelt Island tramway. I’ve stood and stared at the Brooklyn Bridge, this time we’re going to walk it and then explore Brooklyn Heights. A highlight, I hope, will be dinner on Saturday night when we’ve managed to get an invitation to an underground supper club, these are ‘occasional’ restaurants opened up in the host’s home. You hear of them by word of mouth and the location is only disclosed once you’re invited and have accepted. I’ve got the address now and it’s a loft apartment in Brooklyn with catering by an invited chef. More conventionaly lunch on Wednesday is booked at L’Ecole, “Nestled in the heart of SoHo, L’Ecole is the only restaurant of its kind in New York City: a dining experience where tomorrow’s top chefs, currently students at the prestigious French Culinary Institute, serve the very best in classic and contemporary French cuisine. We also hope to get tickets to see Jersey Boys on Broadway. Even though the songs are 50 years old I remember every word, they were great times to be a teenager!

Will report back next week :-)