TalkClimateChange

This post was originally published on EcoWorldly. It is loosely connected with climate change in that it concerns the potential for the mass adoption of public transport, although I post it here purely for your interest and to spread the message.

Putting pen to paper for Bus Transportation Week I began to make a few notes about bus travel in Switzerland – the country that I usually cover on EcoWorldly. My notes read: reliable, clean, efficient.

Not much of a story there.

When there is not much happening in Switzerland and I need to file an EcoWorldly post, I usually look at wider Europe. My notes on bus travel in other nations around Europe read: mostly reliable, mostly clean, mostly efficient.

Still not much to write home about.

And then I read Pem Charnley’s article about bus transportation in Britain, which struck much more of a chord. Having recently written here about the woeful state of British rail transportation, I thought it might be appropriate to continue Pem’s theme and recount my experience of bus travel when I returned to our sunny island for a brief visit recently.

The story starts in the West Midlands with a Saturday shopping trip from my residence in Warwick to the nearby town of Royal Leamington Spa. As before, I shall evaluate the transport infrastructure of the 4^th richest nation in the world using some carefully chosen criteria.

Time

British bus firms are fully committed to the information age, providing extensive online timetable and route information. Many bus company websites look as if they were designed by a 12 year old in the late ‘90s, but all the required information was available to help me plan, allowing me to set off for the bus-stop in plenty of time.

Arriving at the bus-stop, I was curious to note that the faded and stained timetable displayed at the stop didn’t match the information provided on the web. After some initial concern I began to realise that the published timetables are anyway irrelevant since British buses run to their own, secret timetable. This time table is determined by a complex formula based on the average time taken to smoke a packet of cigarettes and drink several cups of tea, multiplied by the number of pages in The Sun newspaper.

I once thought that bus-shelters were vandalised by bored youths with no other outlets for their frustrations. Now I know that they are vandalised by people tired of wasting their lives waiting for busses with no other outlets for their frustrations.

Travel Experience

Eventually, a bus appeared on the horizon. I stood at the curbside expectantly as the bus roared straight past me leaving me standing bewildered in a fog of diesel fumes. It seems that for a bus to stop for a single passenger only, he or she must display the appropriate level of desire to travel in order to justify the inconvenience of stopping. You see, bus services are heavily focused on convenience - the driver’s that is, not the passenger’s.

I now know that in this circumstance one must wave an arm, jump up and down a little and stand partly in the road in order to demonstrate to the driver that one is really committed to the journey. If possible, try to make eye contact with the driver - just so there is no doubt that you really are waving at the bus and not at some other moving object.

Some people may say that standing in a busy road and staring down a 20 ton bus is dangerous, but personally I like a little adventure on my travels.

On boarding the bus, however, enthusiasm begins to wane. I remember as a child that sitting on the top deck of a double-decker bus was a fun experience – one can look down on other cars, see into other peoples gardens and generally feel a little more elevated than normal.

Unfortunately, I seriously doubt that the cleaning staff have ever stepped foot on the top deck of a bus in the West Midlands. The floor is strewn with litter, the windows are opaque with grime and the air smells like the stair-well of a town centre multi-story car park (UK residents will know the odour to which I refer). Instead of feeling elevated, one feels quite the opposite.

To summarise the travel experience, it can be said that once one gets the hang of it, the experience is functional, if not entirely sanitary.

Cost

Bus travel is not expensive. But value for money depends on how many times you have to buy the same ticket – allow me to elaborate;

Having survived the outbound journey, done some shopping, waited seemingly endlessly for the bus home, become hungry, brought a sandwich and waited around in the cold a while longer, a bus finally arrived. Unfortunately I was unable to board immediately - once the arriving passengers had alighted the driver immediately jumped out of the bus to have a cigarette with a colleague parked in the next bay. If you ever doubt that bus drivers can physically move quickly then just watch one go for a break.

Meanwhile the queue of passengers shivered in the cold while the empty busses sat chugging diesel fumes into the air.

Eventually our driver grudgingly got back to business, allowing the weary looking queue of travellers to board his bus. He was a charming fellow, and as I waited for him to take the fare from the passenger in front of me I presumed he was married to a lady named Kate – at least by the letters A T E which I noticed were tattooed on his last three knuckles. On seeing his forefinger I realized that I wrong about this, just as I had been naive about so many aspects of this journey. I was about to understand that the forefinger ‘H’ merely completed the motto instilled on the customer service training course.

Pesenting the return ticket that I had purchased some hours previously, I was told rather bluntly that “You can’t come on this bus with that ticket”.

Certain that there must be some confusion I explained that I had brought it earlier this morning and invited this ambassador of Travel West Midlands to inspect the ticket more closely.

“Wrong bus.” He explained flatly. Sensing my confusion with his special talent for empathy, the driver tiredly explained that I was holding a ticket issued by the Stagecoach bus company, which runs similarly liveried busses on the same route. Reluctantly he pointed to the Stage Coach bus in the next bay as it pulled away, driven by his smoking companion. I’m all for competition in public transport, but a little bit of integration would be useful. Besides, on what are these two firms competing? Rudeness, dirtiness, lateness, hopelessness?

In resignation at my fate I asked for a new ticket, but it wasn’t to be. Having only a £10 note for the £1.25 fare proved to be the final obstacle of my journey as the Travel West Midlands employee of the month told me he didn’t have enough change for the £10, and suggested that I either wait for another bus or get some smaller currency. There was little interest in exploring solutions for this predicament – it was apparently my problem, and bizarrely, he suddenly had a schedule to keep.

I took my £10, and went to look for a taxi.

Conclusion

I don’t wish to sound crass, but in most of the UK busses are only for poor people, or people that for some other reason can’t drive. It is clear that even the most ardent environmentalist would choose a car instead of submitting to this hell on a daily basis. And if you think I am exaggerating then I challenge you to try this for yourself on a cold, damp Saturday morning.

I’ve been on busses in third world countries, where passengers share space with goats and chickens, where the most relaxing place to sit is on the roof and where the driver employs an assistant to wipe the front windshield – whilst the bus is still moving. But although third world transport may lack comfort, it does not lack civility. Sharing space with livestock is one thing, but feeling like livestock is another.

My notes for bus travel in Britain read: avoid.

Photo courtesy of Flickr