Having one of my passengers end up in the wrong place hasn’t happened to me for a long time. Over time I’ve fine tuned what I say, when I say it, where I say it, how I say it and how often I repeat it! But it had to happen again and as I switched the engine off in Birmingham yesterday and called out “this is Birmingham and the final stop” a voice behind me asked “when do we get to London?”

I’d taken the bus over in Winchester after it had collected passengers in both Southampton and Portsmouth. I then take it on to Birmingham. The driver of the local leg had obviously said that passengers for London should leave the bus and get onto the waiting London bus because about 20 passengers exited the bus the moment it stopped. I got aboard and went through the routine of completing the defect card, inserting tacho chart etc. and then stood up and faced the passengers (this is part of the fine tuning, I can see if anyone is asleep, totally oblivious to anything because of a headset etc!) “If you are travelling to London you need to transfer to the bus in front. This bus does not go to London”. They all stared at me and not a soul moved, so I sat down and drove off.

The next thing I do is to make an announcement over the PA system “Welcome aboard this Megabus service to Birmingham calling at Oxford, Coventry and Birmingham Airport” before going on to the bit about seat belts, emergency exits, no smoking etc. So the passengers will have heard me telling them twice where the bus is going, once face to face and once on the PA, plus the two times the previous driver will have covered the same ground. I’d have thought the message was as clear as it could be.

All the London passenger in Birmingham could say was “It doesn’t say I must change bus on here” as she waved her booking form printout. That’s true, but it does say a change of bus may be necessary, when you make the booking on the website. She just didn’t want to answer why she’d ignored the verbal instructions to change bus for London, she kept answering everything with “it doesn’t say I must change on this booking reference”!

If it had been up to me I’d have let her sort herself out and find her own way to London, but I had to inform Perth control about the situation. Big softies that they are they said she could travel on the 14:00 Birmingham to London bus for free! I imparted this news to her and then got a lot of moaning about “that’s not for another hour and a half”. Sometimes I wonder whether I’m really cut out for a customer facing job.