I didn’t think there could be anything worse than Park and Ride until today. My duty was to drive the Portsmouth/Southampton feeder Megabus, do 90 minutes Park and Ride, take a break and then work as directed until 13:30. And so it came to pass that I had to drive the Hospital shuttle while the driver took his break.

The background to this shuttle service is that one of the main roads leading out of Winchester has been shut for 10 weeks whilst work is done to a bridge. This main road carries more Stagecoach buses than any other road in Winchester, and to make matters worse it’s the road on which the County Hospital is located. The diversion starts some way before the hospital and rejoins the main road some way past the hospital. So a free shuttle service to the hospital and back runs from one of the diversion points.

I got to the shuttle’s start point and then found out that it was a manual Mercedes minibus like this one

Not a good start since I dislike driving minibuses – the seats are uncomfortable, they’re noisy, most gearboxes are so worn finding any gear is a hit and miss affair. The route was then explained …… all 1500 metres of it. It makes Park and Ride seem like it should be covered by EU driving regulations! And then there were the passengers who hadn’t got a clue about what was going on. Every bus stop has detailed explanations attached to them, bus shelters have the same information but it seems that no one even noticed the existence of these posters! The odd thing was that they knew the road was closed but still expected the usual bus to be at the usual stop and would take the usual route!! It’s one thing not to know or understand what’s happening but it’s quite another not to listen to the driver explaining the best way to get where they’re going. And some wouldn’t even accept the advice. One guy got off my shuttle and I told that to get into town he needed the stop on the other side of the road and any bus which came along. No! He didn’t think that was right so he waited on my side until a bus came along, got onto the bus (I could see this in my rear view mirror) talked with the driver and then got off. Obviosly been told the same thing as I told him. He then hung around until the next bus came along and the same routine was gone through again. Still didn’t cross the road (missing at least 3 buses headed into town) and only did so after the driver of the third bus must have told him the same again!