Buses arrive in city centre at same time
No room for safe boarding at the pavement
Stagecoach says there’s little it can do about bus congestion around a popular stop in Perth city centre despite a passenger being injured.
At peak times several different services all try to use the South Street halt at the same time.
Cllr Angus Forbes highlighted safety concerns from his Carse of Gowrie constituents last week about a convergence of buses at the South Street stop after a passenger was hurt trying to alight from a vehicle.
The convener of environment and infrastructure forwarded comments made by a constituent to bus operator Stagecoach: “Too many different services are timetabled to arrive at the South Street stop at tea-time. The X7, due to depart Perth South Street at 5.20pm continually blocks the 39 (due to depart 5.19pm) by not driving far enough up the street and parking in the middle lane of the street.
“Worse, this has led to an actual accident on July 14, involving the 39 due to depart South Street 11.46am, when a man fell off the 39.
“It happened when he was trying to alight from a bus blocked from reaching the pavement by another
Buses have less space because of a skip bus, the X7 or Citylink.
“The man suffered a cracked head. There was blood and confusion, with him getting help from a nearby shop as well as the driver of the 39 and the need for an ambulance. All because the bus could not get near the pavement.
“A few tweaks of the timetable might help avoid this sort of accident in future.”
But Stagecoach East Scotland responded: “We will look into the stopping point concern in Perth city centre, however the frequency of services during peak times makes this difficult to make revisions, and although the position of a skip is currently exacerbating the situation, we will use a local inspector [this] week to ensure that drivers of all services use appropriate consideration around these peak times for other bus and passenger movements in the area.”
Cllr Forbes had also raised issues about broken down buses in the Carse of Gowrie and others not arriving because they’d been drafted to go an replace other services.
A spokeswoman for Stagecoach East Scotland said: “We are aware of some reliability issues affecting service 39 recently, some of which have been caused be increased traffic in Dundee and Perth for summer events, and we’re continually monitoring our services in the area to improve reliability.
“We are also hopeful that our planned service changes taking place on August 13 will address some timing issues on parts of the route further east.
“It is unfortunate that some recent incidents along the route, including a breakdown on one of the journeys, have caused missed journeys, and we’d like to apologise for any inconvenience caused.
“Our depot teams will continue to review the performance of the service to minimise any disruption that occurs.”