'another day on the buses'

A bad journey

Malcolm — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 19:14:56 +0000

Nothing seemed to go right on my 10:40 Salisbury to Winchester run today. As I reversed off the stand at Salisbury on of the local controllers came up to inform me that a Wilts & Dorset bus had broken down at the bus station exit and was blocking it. I’d ‘be seen’ to reverse out of the bus station which then leaves puts you in a one-way road needing a loop round the City in order to get back to almost where you started, but no longer blocked by a broken down bus.

A couple of miles out Salisbury I came up behind a large agricultural vehicle travelling at 20 mph and had to follow it for about 6 miles with no opportunity to pass it ….. then a wider bit of road and I got passed. Shortly after that I had to turn off the main road into one of the villages we serve. Got to the village and the road we use was shut off with a “Road Closed” sign! Managed to turn the bus around and take an alternative route before going back to the main road and joining it about 20 seconds after that bloody agricultural vehicle had passed!! Another 2 miles behind it at 20 mph. Aaaargh!

The power of advertising

Malcolm — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 19:59:01 +0000

Will my advert on the side of this bus bring more visitors? Bus advertising can be setup here.

Bus fires

Malcolm — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 11:04:33 +0000

I wonder how common, or should that be rare, they are? Are there any statistics for different types of vehicle fire – cars, lorries, buses etc. based on fires per 1,000 vehicles?

Yesterday one of our local buses, a Wilts & Dorset double-decker on the Active 8 route between Andover and Salisbury, caught fire according to BBC News under the dramatic headline Passengers flee double-decker bus fire near Andover.

Then this morning we have another BBC News story London bendy bus catches fire outside Victoria station.

A circuitous route

Malcolm — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 09:52:29 +0000

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.”

A rather old child

Malcolm — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:23:16 +0000

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.

New readers

Malcolm — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 19:34:36 +0000

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’m getting a message

Malcolm — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 10:22:58 +0000

And the message is that people are far more interested in breastfeeding than the life of a bus driver. Analysis of the last 7 days search terms used to reach this blog show that ‘breastfeeding’ was the biggest single search term by a country mile – three times more searches on the single word ‘breastfeeding’ than all the search terms including ‘bus’ in them added together!

Perhaps it would be a good idea to change ‘Buses in the News’ to ‘Breastfeeding in the News’? :-)

Customer complaints

Malcolm — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 19:53:53 +0000

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.