Just thought I should give my impressions as a non-local of First’s Glasgow network. I’ve just been there for a few days, so just a snapshot really.
The buses around the city looked clean most of the time, and the ones I travelled on all appeared to be clean inside. Drivers largely friendly, although did have 2 unfriendly and unhelpful ones.
Although there were some quite new vehicles, the fleet did have quite a lot of older vehicles, with some very noisy Volvos. I’m usually of the opinion that as long as a bus is clean and comfortable (which they were), age doesn’t matter too much. Some Tridents were quite uncomfortable though and having really noisy Volvos probably isn’t a good image. But largely a good and well maintained fleet from what I saw though. Branded vehicles seemed to stay on their proper routes too.
This isn’t really the fault of First, but travelling around the city centre could often be quite painfully slow, with constant stop/start at traffic lights. So there could be some improvements to bus priority I think. The amount of roadworks and the expanded pavements for social distancing probably impacted my time there too.
I think the map provided by First for the Glasgow was really good, especially as it includes most routes from other operators which is rare from a commercial operator. There could be an improvement with mapping the city centre though, as I found it fairly difficult to work out where the buses stopped. Not sure of a solution though.
I was disappointed with the app. I did buy a paper day ticket on one day, which worked fine. But another day I thought I’d try buying it on the app. The app itself is good I think, clear and easy to use. In practice however, every bus I went on was unable to scan my phone properly, and I’m not sure why (you scan the QR code on the ticket on your phone, just like you have to do with the paper ticket). It seems other passengers were having this problem. Most drivers just waved me on, some had a look at it, and other drivers thought it was invalid or it was the wrong ticket with one being quite rude. So, it was a bit of a hassle, and I think that would put some passengers off using the bus again, especially if they are anxious people. I’ll use the paper one next time!
From an enthusiasts point of view, it was great to see so many older Wright vehicles, which appear to be getting rarer now. On routes 60/60A were ex-London Tridents which was good to see before they presumably go soon.
For me, it was good to see so many ‘heavyweight’ single deckers as I am not used to them in my area. The newer MMC vehicles looked impressive, but especially the route 500 airport vehicles - they looked excellent, although for obvious reasons I didn’t see anyone using them!