Compensation for delays due to bus cancellations?

[geoffk]

I found this item about bus passenger rights - "Those travelling by bus can relax, as they are protected, in most of Europe, by EU Regulation no. 181/2011 entered into force on 1 March 2013. The regulation protects the rights of passengers, especially when it comes to delays. However, it is important to know that this provision only applies if it is a long-distance bus route of at least 250 km."

Not much help then for a local service. I noticed yesterday that Stagecoach service 1 from Exeter to Cullompton at 19.25 was cancelled, with the next one at 21.15, leaving passengers going beyond Pinhoe with a wait of 1 hour 50 minutes. I've no idea what's meant to happen in these circumstances. I wasn't at the bus station so didn't see how many were waiting. I imagine you are just expected to make your own arrangements, like go the pub, take a taxi, phone a friend etc. You could have similarly long wait for a train if yours was cancelled but at least you can claim delay repay. Bus passengers get a worse deal than rail or airline passengers, both of whom have some protection enshrined in law.

 

[Busaholic]

I found this item about bus passenger rights - "Those travelling by bus can relax, as they are protected, in most of Europe, by EU Regulation no. 181/2011 entered into force on 1 March 2013. The regulation protects the rights of passengers, especially when it comes to delays. However, it is important to know that this provision only applies if it is a long-distance bus route of at least 250 km."

Would that apply if the passenger was travelling less than 250 km? Not much use if you only wanted to get to the Dog and Duck in the next village.

 

[buscontroller]

Also they can cancel service and refund with no compensation needed. it only if you there a breakdown or missed inter connection on route. And with case of food and hotels you have to pay for it and claim back.

 

[Megafuss]

If a bus is cancelled, then I'd hope best practice would be to refund a taxi and/or give a free day ticket. Certainly is the case at operators I'm aware of.

However, a "delay repay" for buses would not work/unless operators received compensation themselves for things outside their control.

Buses have to share a road network with other users and the administration would be a can of worms. What if a badly parked car blocks a bus, creating a gap in service. Should the operator try and get compo from the car owner to pass on to the passenger?

For me, cancelled serviced should be dealt with by best practice in any case. If not, they should be named and shamed. For other delays, it is a minefield.

 

[geoffk]

If a bus is cancelled, then I'd hope best practice would be to refund a taxi and/or give a free day ticket. Certainly is the case at operators I'm aware of.

However, a "delay repay" for buses would not work/unless operators received compensation themselves for things outside their control.

Buses have to share a road network with other users and the administration would be a can of worms. What if a badly parked car blocks a bus, creating a gap in service. Should the operator try and get compo from the car owner to pass on to the passenger?

For me, cancelled serviced should be dealt with by best practice in any case. If not, they should be named and shamed. For other delays, it is a minefield.

Yes, fair points. I think there's some opportunity to claim compensation from gas or water companies for delays due to roadworks, especially if they over-run, but this is getting off the subject a bit.

 

[busestrains]

I found this item about bus passenger rights - "Those travelling by bus can relax, as they are protected, in most of Europe, by EU Regulation no. 181/2011 entered into force on 1 March 2013. The regulation protects the rights of passengers, especially when it comes to delays. However, it is important to know that this provision only applies if it is a long-distance bus route of at least 250 km."

Not much help then for a local service. I noticed yesterday that Stagecoach service 1 from Exeter to Cullompton at 19.25 was cancelled, with the next one at 21.15, leaving passengers going beyond Pinhoe with a wait of 1 hour 50 minutes. I've no idea what's meant to happen in these circumstances. I wasn't at the bus station so didn't see how many were waiting. I imagine you are just expected to make your own arrangements, like go the pub, take a taxi, phone a friend etc. You could have similarly long wait for a train if yours was cancelled but at least you can claim delay repay. Bus passengers get a worse deal than rail or airline passengers, both of whom have some protection enshrined in law.

Is there any bus route in the UK that is more than 250km long? If not then it seems this legislation is completely irrelevant to the UK?

Yes the service provided to bus passengers when there are delays and cancellations is appalling. Most offices are only open 08:00/09:00/10:00 to 16:00/17:00/18:00 on Monday to Friday only. So outside of these times you have no way of even contacting the bus company to find out about your bus. If it is a big group company they will not be able to help you anyway from in their centralised call centre.

There should at the very least be some legislation that the bus company has to provide delay repay for delays and cancellations that are their fault. But i guess a lot of the bus operators would be unhappy with even that.

 

[SSmith2009]

Kinchbus/trentbarton are paying passengers taxi fares for cancelled buses although their replies to comments on facebook regarding the reimbursing of taxi fares leaves a lot to be desired recently

One such reply on the Kinchbus page

I'm really sorry about this. We can only notify our customers of any cancellations as and when we are told by the Operations team. We are under no obligation to cover any taxi fares, we do so because we believe it is the right thing to do as it is a solution that helps the customer. If the bus is not operating a journey, no amount of complaining is going to make it run, so we try to assist by offering an alternative. I fully understand and appreciate that not everybody has the financial means of paying for a taxi and waiting for it to be recompensed. It is not ideal from a fiscal perspective, we lose income from no ticket revenue and then supplement that with the costs of all these taxi's but this was out choice to do so, and we'll continue to offer this whilst the situation is as it is. We are not going to start offering compensation to people, but we will offer to refund taxi's, so I would advise if this situation does arise again, to please take advantage of this. I wish I could offer you a more positive solution but this is a difficult time for the industry as a whole and one that has impacted us very badly. We'll continue to work to run as much as we can, redress the imbalance of drivers and shifts but these will not all happen immediately, and for that I do sincerely apologise ~ James

 

[Simon75]

Some years ago , I was waiting for a bus (i was the only person)to work early morning.
Bus didn't turn up, as it broke down, but there was an a inspector (very rare even at about 6.30am) , who said I could claim taxi fare, if I went to the office at the bus station, and mentioned her.
This was a first Potteries bus

 

[RT4038]

Is there any bus route in the UK that is more than 250km long? If not then it seems this legislation is completely irrelevant to the UK?

Buses and coaches are interchangeable words in this context. National Express/Megabus/Flixbus are affected by this legislation.

Yes the service provided to bus passengers when there are delays and cancellations is appalling. Most offices are only open 08:00/09:00/10:00 to 16:00/17:00/18:00 on Monday to Friday only. So outside of these times you have no way of even contacting the bus company to find out about your bus. If it is a big group company they will not be able to help you anyway from in their centralised call centre.

Most bus companies have a tracker on their websites/app to help with this. Not brilliant, but better than nothing. If the bus company is contacted, they will simply be looking at this information too. Self service is now the norm, anything else being too expensive.

 

[Tetchytyke]

lthough their replies to comments on facebook regarding the reimbursing of taxi fares leaves a lot to be desired recently

I don't see anything wrong with that reply- it explains the how and the why clearly and fairly.

Most bus companies have a tracker on their websites/app to help with this. Not brilliant, but better than nothing.

It's definitely better than the old days of no information whatsoever, but the apps/trackers are not reliable enough to have faith in. I've seen both phantom buses that aren't there in the app (presumably a glitch where the app defaults to timetable but erroneously displays the information as real time) and also buses that aren't showing in the app that arrive anyway. There's also the above issue that apps tend to default to timetable if a bus isn't tracking- they don't usually say cancelled.

I'm not sure what's more annoying- waiting for a phantom bus, or walking away from the bus stop just as your bus goes sailing past.

 

[RT4038]

It's definitely better than the old days of no information whatsoever, but the apps/trackers are not reliable enough to have faith in. I've seen both phantom buses that aren't there in the app (presumably a glitch where the app defaults to timetable but erroneously displays the information as real time) and also buses that aren't showing in the app that arrive anyway. There's also the above issue that apps tend to default to timetable if a bus isn't tracking- they don't usually say cancelled.

I'm not sure what's more annoying- waiting for a phantom bus, or walking away from the bus stop just as your bus goes sailing past.

I am not doubting you - it is my experience too - the technology has quite some way to go .

 

[miklcct]

In Sweden, Jönköpings Länstrafik provides compensation for all modes of transport when it is delayed by 20 minutes, no matter it is a local train or a local bus.

 

[asw22]

When I was working at Scarcroft between 2014 and 2018, the X98/X99 (Wetherby to Leeds) would often have all its buses cancelled between 6 and 8 pm on a regular basis so I used to walk or semi-run the 3 miles down the busy but dark A58 to look for an alternative from Shadwell (7S), Monkswood (49) or Coal Road (7) into Leeds. I raised this a few times both with the operator and Metro - a couple of times I was given a day ticket but often it would be just an apology.
In the end I ended up emailing the then MD of First Bus UK and then things started to improve a little.

 

[londonbridge]

It's definitely better than the old days of no information whatsoever, but the apps/trackers are not reliable enough to have faith in. I've seen both phantom buses that aren't there in the app (presumably a glitch where the app defaults to timetable but erroneously displays the information as real time) and also buses that aren't showing in the app that arrive anyway. There's also the above issue that apps tend to default to timetable if a bus isn't tracking- they don't usually say cancelled.

Couple of times recently I’ve walked to the bus stop, looked at the countdown board or checked my phone app (this is TFL land btw) and it might say my bus is due in eleven minutes. Started waiting then one has turned up after three or four minutes despite the board still saying it’s not due for another seven or eight.

X26 is one of the worst ones for running according to what’s shown on the app, partly because it’s such a long route and can get delayed quite easily. Saturday night the timetable at Hatton Cross towards Croydon says 21:07 and 21:37, I arrived at one minute to nine, the app was showing six minutes, 21:07 came and went, bus didn’t arrive, app changes so that at 21:15 it’s showing next one due in 22 mins, then it showed up at 21:20.

 

[philthetube]

It sounds as if the 2107 wasn't tracking and running late. Most apps show whether a bus is tracking or not and if not will just show timetabled times. There should be something on your app which tells you if the time you are seeing is live or timetable.

 

[noddingdonkey]

It sounds as if the 2107 wasn't tracking and running late. Most apps show whether a bus is tracking or not and if not will just show timetabled times. There should be something on your app which tells you if the time you are seeing is live or timetable.

That's what any reasonable person would assume. First Customer Services?

((Live)) times are a prediction based on the schedule. When a service shows ((live)) it will allow you to track a bus using the 'bus on a map' feature which will show where the bus is in live time. If it doesn't show here, it is unlikely to be running.

(From a publicly available Tweet)

You really can't reliably tell if a bus is just 10 minutes late leaving the origin (not uncommon) or genuinely not going to show up.

 

[RogerOut]

I know we’re talking about long distance coaches here. How would it work on local bus routes though? How can a passenger prove they were going to travel on the bus? To get the compensation? A train ticket is brought in advance of a journey, even if only for a few minutes.
Some people still buy tickets on board.

Also, obviously train delays or cancellations can mean a long time before the next one.Buses can be regular. What if the next bus is 30 mins away? Or 5 mins away? What is the policy for this ?
Also wouldn’t the bus operators say that traffic and road incidents is beyond their control?