Missed a bus as due to poor information

[marshmallow]

Yesterday I arrived at my local Bus Station before my bus was due, my bus arrived and the driver got off and closed the doors for a change of driver so I stood by the bus and waited. Shortly afterwards, another driver arrived and got on, then some passengers got off and the driver got off, and I assumed that he would be back soon to drive the bus, so I continued to stand next to it. After several minutes of waiting, I went to sit on the bench as the driver was taking so long, and at this point I noticed that the bus now said that it was not in service. I then noticed another bus next to it departing for my destination (and I could not board as it was leaving), so I went into the enquiries office where the driver was from the original bus, and asked the driver what was going on. I was advised that he had told all the passengers on the bus to get off and board the bus next to it [when the passengers were getting off, I had assumed that the reason was that they had been unable to at first as the first driver had closed the doors, not because they were moving to another bus!]. The thing that annoyed me most was that the driver did not apologise and did not seem to care.

The driver had never told me that I should get on the bus next to it, and it was for this reason that I missed the next bus. As such, do I have reasonable grounds to complain to the bus company? I have made a note of the number plate of the bus to support a claim. I feel that this is similar to if they changed the platform of a train at a train station but did not make an announcement.

I know it sounds silly that I didn't notice that everyone got off the bus and changed to one next to it for the same destination, however I was not watching where they were going and had no idea that the bus was going out of service!

 

[jon0844]

Sadly many bus drivers aren't really bothered about passengers and just drive them. That has meant over the years many buses missed because drivers run early, forget to display a number (sometimes driving around with 'out of service' on the front, or nothing) and even skipping parts of the route when it's their last run.

Technology has helped eradicate a lot of those problems, but in your case it's a time where you are probably best asking drivers even if they sometimes get upset at being asked dumb questions. I think I've realised there's no such thing as a dumb question when it comes to bus travel. Unlike a train, there are many situations where information presented to you is going to be wrong!

 

[marshmallow]

in your case it's a time where you are probably best asking drivers even if they sometimes get upset at being asked dumb questions

I think that this is good advice, however unfortunately in my case I had no reason to believe that the bus which I was standing by would not be my bus, if I had then I would have seen the other bus anyway! I felt that in this situation, when the driver got off the bus he should have made a clear announcement that anyone waiting for this bus, should now board the one next to it!

If the driver had been apologetic when I spoke to him then I would have let this go, however the fact that he clearly didn't care when he knew that it was his fault that I had missed the bus seemed unacceptable.

For this reason, I much prefer trains as they have proper conditions, although having said that as I posted recently, a South Western Railway service recently departed over 2 minutes before its scheduled time [when there are actually signs up at the station saying train doors may close up to 30 seconds before departure] meaning that I missed it, and when I spoke to station staff about it they were surprised but just advised me when the next train would be departing, without even apologising!