News / First West of England
First Bus begins 2019 by angering passengers
If the operator of Bristol’s beleaguered bus service had hoped to wipe the slate clean in 2019, it’s not had a great start.
First Bus, which faced a barrage of complaints last year for persistent delays and cancellations, has come under fire again this week.
The reason this time is the company’s decision to operate a scaled back Saturday timetable from January 2 – 4, despite a vast chunk of people resuming normal working hours after New Year’s Day, leaving many stranded at cold bus stops across the city.
is needed now More than ever
Commuters took to social media to complain about the reduced service and perceived lack of notice about the changes.
https://twitter.com/FirstBSA/status/1080727143850627073
https://twitter.com/FirstBSA/status/1080781279661051905
“Are you aware that loads of people today couldn’t show up at work on time or they missed important appointments because unexpectedly timetable was changed without proper announcements?” fumed one passenger on Twitter.
First says that the Saturday timetable is in operation to reflect lower passenger demand and insists it has publicised the changes via social media and on its website since December 3.
But this has done little to appease people across Bristol.
First has responded to criticism this week with a statement, saying “As part of its Christmas and New Year timetables, First West of England is running Saturday timetables for the majority of services until Friday, January 4.
“This reflects the lower passenger demand this week before the full return to work and new school term on Monday, January 7. All services revert to normal timetables from Saturday, January 5 onwards.”
The latest criticism comes in the wake of a catalogue of issues over the last year.
A long summer of delays and cancellations sparked a public rally to protest the state of the service in November and a petition calling for Bristol to take back control of its bus service and operate a franchising system has reached more than 2,000 signatures.
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Read more: Mass rally over state of Bristol’s bus services
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First was even the subject of a track by Bristol hip hop MC and producer GOOSE, who slates the service the company provides in his First Bus Diss Track.
The director of First Bus James Freeman apologised to passengers for the problems, blaming a “brief but severe driver shortage” and the city’s increasing congestion problem that leaves buses sitting in traffic, unable to move.
The company has taken measures to address the problem, spending £150,000 to draft in 20 extra vehicles, plus additional drivers, from around the country in the run up to Christmas.
The ‘queue buster’ buses were deployed on the busiest cross-city routes to “plug gaps” where the timetabled route faced delays due to traffic congestion.
First boss James Freeman has apologised to passengers
Announcing the measures in December, Freeman said: “Chronic congestion across the city, particularly at peak times, means we can’t always offer the customer the reliability that they rightly expect from a bus service.”
The initiative will be reviewed early this year to see if the measures might work as a longer-term solution to Bristol’s congestion crisis.
First has also worked on innovative ways to increase its number of bus drivers, with a successful pilot programme to train and recruit refugees.
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Read more: Training programme offers refugees opportunity to become bus drivers
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All of which is badly needed because, despite the level of complaints, Bristol is actually bucking the trend of declining bus travel, with the numbers of passengers up more than 40 per cent since 2009/10 in 2018 – a fact which prompted a visit by MPs from the House of Commons’ Transport Committee in November.
2018 saw the eventual opening of the first two metrobus routes against a backdrop of delays, technical hitches and spiralling costs.
Now the third and longest m1 metrobus service – connecting south Bristol, Bedminster, the city centre, UWE, Bradley Stoke and Cribbs Causeway – is all set to launch on Sunday. This will be operated by Bristol Community Transport, under contract to First.
Passengers will also have to get to grips with a raft of changes to the normal First timetables from this weekend. Full details are available online.
Read more: Social enterprise to operate Bristol’s major new metrobus route
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