Improvements make little change to bus services for uni students
Passengers fed-up with Bath’s university bus services say the operator’s efforts to improve matters have made “negligible” difference. First Bus announced it had laid on extra buses and drivers as a temporary stop-gap after Unibus passengers complained of buses arriving late or driving past full last week. But students from the University of Bath have reported ongoing problems with U1 and U2 services since the bus company introduced the emergency measures on Tuesday, October 2. A Facebook page set up by the university’s student union to collect feedback contains a litany of complaints about buses being late, not turning up, not picking up passengers, “not in service”, sitting empty for want of a driver, and breaking down. One student described the bus situation as “terrible” while another said it had “kind of ruined” his first week of classes at university. Chris Hanson, First’s head of operations, has offered his “unreserved apologies” and reassured customers the company is doing “everything possible” to deal with “unprecedented volumes of passengers”. The U1 and U2 routes have 13 extra buses each and more will be added, but the solution is not “straightforward” and “will take effort to get right”, he warned. Councillor Mark Shelford, the local authority’s cabinet member for transport, has welcomed First Bus’s attempts to meet demand but invited other commercial bus operators to seize the opportunity if “one bus operator is unable to do this”. “We need a reliable and sustainable network of commercial bus services,” he said. Students complained of having to wait over an hour and 20 minutes and being left stranded, while others said Monday’s queues for the U1 in Corn Street were even worse than last week’s. One said he waited 40 minutes and watched as three full buses and two empty ones drove past - before an “overcrowded” bus stopped to pick up around 10 people of the “probably 70+ person” queue. Others complained they were told to get off the bus at Avon Street because the driver had finished his shift, and the bus sat empty because no other drivers were available. Still other students complained that they waited for more than half an hour to catch a U2 home from university last week but watched as up to a dozen U1 buses came and went. Numerous students complained about their U1 bus breaking down on Bathwick Hill or being too weak to climb it. Jay Hale said she had to walk up the hill after the U1 she was on broke down less than half way up. First West of England said it had doubled capacity on the U2 service and was using extra drivers and buses to provide “interim relief” on the U1 service. Mr Hanson added: “Working with external companies and drivers however is not as straightforward as it sounds, and will take effort to get right, but we are doing everything possible to get to this point.”