Citi 1: City centre, Fulbourn
Mar. 29th, 2010 11:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackI had a lovely evening with Rachel's family, but unfortunately, generated more travel rant on the way home.
It turns out that I CONTINUE to fail to manage the most simple every day tasks with the Cambridge public transport system. I used to be used to trains, which while sometimes difficult, normally have correct announcements saying what the train is, and where its going, but whenever I'm trying to catch a bus from anywhere except the central bus stop I'm always extremely paranoid, because there's a half-hour window when the bus may arrive, and if you sit down, rather than hovering nervously at the kerb, the bus is entitled to drive straight past if you are not quick enough to stand up, or stand up and look at the bus and make eye contact with the driver and get your wallet out, but fail to hold up your hand.
I have recently been trying to relax more, and not assume that if I lose attention for a second the bus will maliciously whisk me off to the wrong place, but today this more conciliatory strategy totally failed me. I'm used to waiting for a bus with the right number, at the right stop, going in the right direction, but today I got overconfident, and assumed that because the only citi 1 buses running would be the timetabled ones, so jumped on the citi 1 from the station going into town, intending to go to arbury, and stupidly failed to check the direction, stop and number coincided with the right destination listed, because Stagecoach completely successfully suckered me, by providing a Citi 1 which goes into town, at the right time, from the right stop AND THEN TURNS AROUND AND GOES BACK THE WAY IT CAME. (I got home safe because it overlapped the normal citi 1 in the city centre.)
I feel very foolish, because when I realised what was wrong I asked the driver, and he told me the facts, but I stupidly, foolishly phrased my question wrongly, in terms of the NORMAL route, assuming that if this bus was different, he would have said so when I asked, but instead just told me matter of factly what that bus did, and I assumed I understood the route wrongly, and went to look at the map, and then there was no point going back to clarify. But now I'm curious whether this phantom bus was something which was obvious to everyone except me, or what on earth I should have asked the driver :(
I realise I always look at public transport from the point of view of the passenger rather than the people having to provide the service, but always things leap out at me as LOOKING as if they'd be obviously good ideas, when presumably there is some significant downside I don't know enough to work out. For instance, what if:
* Buses posted timetables for that route, and other city centre routes INSIDE the bus where people have hours of useless time to memorise them
* Buses were issued a float of at least £10 in notes and £5 in coins at the start of the day.
* Standalone train ticket machines let you buy a ticket for the next morning during the quiet part of the night.
* If the driver stops a bus for five minutes to bring it back onto the correct timetable and smoke a cigarrette, he could announce how long its stopping for. (This is an instance which serves completely perfectly well people to whom taking a bus is an end in itself, but refuses to acknowledge that to some people a bus journey may simply be a commodity used in order to reach a destination, and committing the journey they'd decided on is actually secondary to arriving at their destination, and if the bus stops for five minutes two hundred yards short of their stop, they'd rather walk.)
* The bus company could consider the most common occurrences, and establish a policy, a set of guidelines, or an acknowledgement that drivers should have discretion over each. For instance, if someone wants to buy a ticket valid for that bus, but the driver has never heard of it, the driver could choose to prepare in advance a reasonable reaction such as "I'm sorry, I can't help you, you'll have to buy a different ticket or talk to the central bus station" or "It's ok, just buy the ticket on the next bus" or "I'll see if it's in the computer, and decide if it is or not" rather than just staring blankly and making the passenger guess each option in turn, and responding with "sorry, no" until they get the right one.
It turns out that I CONTINUE to fail to manage the most simple every day tasks with the Cambridge public transport system. I used to be used to trains, which while sometimes difficult, normally have correct announcements saying what the train is, and where its going, but whenever I'm trying to catch a bus from anywhere except the central bus stop I'm always extremely paranoid, because there's a half-hour window when the bus may arrive, and if you sit down, rather than hovering nervously at the kerb, the bus is entitled to drive straight past if you are not quick enough to stand up, or stand up and look at the bus and make eye contact with the driver and get your wallet out, but fail to hold up your hand.
I have recently been trying to relax more, and not assume that if I lose attention for a second the bus will maliciously whisk me off to the wrong place, but today this more conciliatory strategy totally failed me. I'm used to waiting for a bus with the right number, at the right stop, going in the right direction, but today I got overconfident, and assumed that because the only citi 1 buses running would be the timetabled ones, so jumped on the citi 1 from the station going into town, intending to go to arbury, and stupidly failed to check the direction, stop and number coincided with the right destination listed, because Stagecoach completely successfully suckered me, by providing a Citi 1 which goes into town, at the right time, from the right stop AND THEN TURNS AROUND AND GOES BACK THE WAY IT CAME. (I got home safe because it overlapped the normal citi 1 in the city centre.)
I feel very foolish, because when I realised what was wrong I asked the driver, and he told me the facts, but I stupidly, foolishly phrased my question wrongly, in terms of the NORMAL route, assuming that if this bus was different, he would have said so when I asked, but instead just told me matter of factly what that bus did, and I assumed I understood the route wrongly, and went to look at the map, and then there was no point going back to clarify. But now I'm curious whether this phantom bus was something which was obvious to everyone except me, or what on earth I should have asked the driver :(
I realise I always look at public transport from the point of view of the passenger rather than the people having to provide the service, but always things leap out at me as LOOKING as if they'd be obviously good ideas, when presumably there is some significant downside I don't know enough to work out. For instance, what if:
* Buses posted timetables for that route, and other city centre routes INSIDE the bus where people have hours of useless time to memorise them
* Buses were issued a float of at least £10 in notes and £5 in coins at the start of the day.
* Standalone train ticket machines let you buy a ticket for the next morning during the quiet part of the night.
* If the driver stops a bus for five minutes to bring it back onto the correct timetable and smoke a cigarrette, he could announce how long its stopping for. (This is an instance which serves completely perfectly well people to whom taking a bus is an end in itself, but refuses to acknowledge that to some people a bus journey may simply be a commodity used in order to reach a destination, and committing the journey they'd decided on is actually secondary to arriving at their destination, and if the bus stops for five minutes two hundred yards short of their stop, they'd rather walk.)
* The bus company could consider the most common occurrences, and establish a policy, a set of guidelines, or an acknowledgement that drivers should have discretion over each. For instance, if someone wants to buy a ticket valid for that bus, but the driver has never heard of it, the driver could choose to prepare in advance a reasonable reaction such as "I'm sorry, I can't help you, you'll have to buy a different ticket or talk to the central bus station" or "It's ok, just buy the ticket on the next bus" or "I'll see if it's in the computer, and decide if it is or not" rather than just staring blankly and making the passenger guess each option in turn, and responding with "sorry, no" until they get the right one.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-30 10:05 am (UTC)I also get very frustrated with the lack of any sensible information on board busses as to where they are, where they are going, and when they expect to be there. Trains are just so much better behaved in these respects.