For reasons that are more than adequately documented elsewhere I have spent all of my working life using either a bicycle or public transport. Like anyone in that position that means I have both full appreciation of the value of public transport and intimate knowledge of its failings. It’s almost impossible in such circumstances to not contemplate what might be done to improve things (and improve they must) but experience shows that the complaints system is beyond flawed and that if deregulation has failed then so did state ownership before it.
Making complaints about buses especially is hilarious but demoralising. There is no central route for complaints. Complain about one route it goes one way. Complain about a bus on some of the same route and the complaint goes elsewhere and never the twain shall meet.Common solutions to common problems? Nope.
This assumes of course that making a complaint is easy. It is not. Ever seen a leaflet asking you to comment on a bus service available on a bus? A Metro maybe. Actually, make that hundreds of Metro papers (mostly strewn on the floor down the length of the bus as an extra challenge to navigate to and from your seat) but an actual complaint leaflet. How very last century.
Then there’s the thorny question of what the outcome of a complaint should be. Denials of systematic problems are endemic (“no evidence this happens routinely” type of stuff) and indeed it may be the case that the evidence base simply is not there. Bus companies are not renowned for being at the forefront of anything including data collection. On the other hand, individual complaints no matter how appalling… well what is the compensation exactly?
Over the past 18 years of working in one city I have made endless complaints to the same company having been stranded; deliberately ignored by half full buses; sworn at by bus drivers; thrown about by drivers desperate to get home; seen blanket denials of buses ever passing stops more than 5 minutes ahead of schedule and so on. In all that time I have been offered one, yes you did read that right, ONE, complimentary ticket; endless denials; some “we’ll speak to the driver and get back to you” type stuff and the obligatory “we will aim to learn from this” PR spin.
Has it got better? Well come on. What do you think? It has gotten steadily worse. Incidentally, remind me again, what is the use of a complimentary ticket if you have already explained that you have a pass. Adding insult to injury perhaps?
So, we have, in my opinion, an embarrassingly poor service that is steadily getting worse and no obvious means of making it better. Experience nationally suggests that this is not always the case but it is increasingly the norm. So, what to do?
Well, I signed up to Twitter to see what all the fuss was about. It took me only a few days to realise that it was an ideal way to document the reality of public transport for millions of people and to get that out into the public domain. I started almost immediately and equally rapidly realised that I needed to have some permanent explanation of why and how. This is it.
1) I am tweeting my morning journey only on working days for one year. I could do the afternoons and evenings and there are problems to those journeys that may be unique and well worth recording but, come on, I want to enjoy my bus journey as much as you do so I’m afraid on the way home you’ll generally find me reading something or other. I may occasionally tweet but it’s the mornings I will concentrate on for the sake of my own sanity.
2) Despite the relatively negative start to this article, I have no axe to grind. I intent to record the positive as well as the negative. Indeed, if you’re already familiar with the tweets you will see this to be the case. My assumption is that the former will considerably outnumber the latter. That does not mean it should not be recorded and it does not mean my assumption will be correct. I am happy to be proven entirely wrong.
3) I want to concentrate as far as possible on recording objective stuff e.g. the time the bus arrived in comparison to when it ought to have arrived. Whether it is overcrowded. Whether it goes the correct route and so on. Inevitably, personal subjective opinion will be in there too. This is my personal experience so that’s inevitable. I will try my best to not let it cloud everything else and so should you. My Twitter account is my own and for my own personal use. It reflects all of my personal opinions and none of those of my employer. Was that a disclaimer? Yes, it was.
4) I am happy to identify the bus company whose buses I predominantly use. It is First Buses. I do not wish to identify the route or the bus numbers or the drivers by their names and so on. That ensures a reasonable amount of confidentiality for all concerned and, being extremely paranoid for a moment, it will ensure that the opportunity to artificially improve my journey experience is minimised. If extra buses mysteriously appear on my routes I will be extremely suspicious 
5) I am inevitably doing this from the perspective of being a person with a lifelong visual impairment. It is a relatively mild one but it has a significant range of effects nevertheless. However, I will try my best to incorporate other perspectives such as disability awareness; accessibility and so on.
6) Obviously I want publicity for this but I am happy for it grow organically. I will email and tweet various organisations I think might or ought to have an interest or whom might or ought to be able to assist. Don’t look for an organised PR campaign though. I’m a one man band and there’s plenty of effort involved in this already. Please feel free to follow me on Twitter and to re-tweet my tweets if you feel it appropriate. If you know of an organisation or individual with a possible interest please let them know.
7) At the end of year I want a body of evidence. It may well be subjective in places (although bus timings are clearly not) but I am hoping to subject it to analysis wherever possible. My intent is to post that stuff up here as and I when I update it and then link to it from Twitter. I’;m thinking of stuff like analysing lateness, which is just statistical and can be represented graphically but also some more qualitative stuff like musing (hmm, maybe that’s not analysis!) on accessibility and disability awareness. I have some ideas as to who should be interested in that body of evidence (First Buses for a start I would hope!) but no fixed ideas. If you have some thoughts on the matter please let me know.
Anyway… if I’ve held your interest this far please go to Twitter and do a search for @mikehughescq. That’s me. You can also see a sample of the latest three tweets to the bottom right of every page on this site. There will be plenty of non-public transport stuff there too. Apologies if that doesn’t hold your interest. Look forward to hearing from you.
