Furious passenger slams bus service
A HUDDERSFIELD woman has shared her fury after being repeatedly late for work for eight months after her bus “hasn’t turned up”.
The 25-year-old, from Lindley, who wishes to remain unnamed, has been getting on the First Bus X63 since getting a new job in July 2021.
The Pets At Home worker travels to the Brighouse store for her shifts, but says her bus “drives right past” her or “turns up late”.
After months and months of pleading with the bus company she says she feels “unheard”, and has been “reduced to tears”.
The woman has had to get alternative taxi journeys which she “cannot afford” or repeatedly been late for work.
The unhappy passenger pays £75 a month for the bus service, but ends up spending a lot more after finding alternative ways to get to work and back home due to the bus “that never turned up”.
“It adds up on top of my bills and everything else”, she said. The woman believes the issue is a direct backlash from the coronavirus pandemic, adding that workers have quit, leaving many passengers with journeys cancelled, interrupted, or “not turning up at all”.
She said she “wouldn’t mind” if her journey was cancelled, but wants to be informed beforehand.
The 25-year-old said: “I have been waiting an hour and a half in the cold before because they either cancel, just don’t show up according to schedule or drive straight past me and say out of service, or they come too early.”
She explained that on March 26, she finished work at 7.15pm and was due to get the bus from Bradford Road at 7.20pm but it “never showed up”.
“There was one due at 8.03 that drove straight past me and stated it was out of service and then the one that was due at 8.30pm got cancelled. There were no other buses to my knowledge. Which left me stranded and having to get a taxi instead.
“And on April 2, my employer let me out out work at 7pm to catch the bus. It drove past just as I got outside, which means it was 20 minutes early. The next bus was at 8.03pm, and again it got cancelled. At this point I got a taxi. I’m not sure if the 8.30pm bus came.”
She added that she has even attempted to track her bus on the First Bus app but the journeys are listed “wrong” and the tracking “still doesn’t work”.
The Brighouse worker explained that she has been having trouble since July 2021, and made several complaints with promise of someone getting back in touch but no one ever did, she claims.
She added: “I have heard people scream in the middle of the bus station before because they are so fed up.”
The Examiner has contacted First Group for a comment.