(25 Jun 2022, 4:03 pm)Adrian wrote When I've been out and about today (and to be honest, the whole of this week), its more noticeable than ever just how sick of these disruptions the public are getting.
I've seen multiple instances of drivers getting it in the neck from irate customers, both on the bus and whilst they're waiting to take a bus on (e.g. at Chester front street). Whilst I think its bang out of order the way some customers talk to drivers, I think its sadly becoming inevitable due to the amount of disruption.
There's also more and more people complaining about it in conversation, e.g. when I'm on board or waiting for a bus. A 56 I used earlier, apparently the one prior didnt turn up, the one after was cancelled, and the one we boarded was being cut short at Gateshead. Is this the active regulation that Martijn Gilbert referenced on twitter?
I wonder just how much these operators, and I know its not just GNE, are shooting themselves in the foot right now. As I've said before, why would anyone switch to bus, unless you like ending up pissed off?
It's a terrible situation, it's little wonder there's shortages, I wouldn't want to be paid peanuts to have to have complaints and gripes from passengers and I cannot say I blame the passengers either with how much of a joke some of the services have been of late, after my debacle with the 25 not running and instead being made to get an 82 and two 21's to reach my destination of Eldon Square, well near it! can imagine how f'd off I was by the time we made it to our destination, literally as we pulled into Gateshead Interchange on the 21 and the NSA played "this bus will terminate at the next stop" I just went "you are taking the piss?!" Didn't get much happier when we were made to get off at a stop that wasn't Eldon Square so the bus could f**k off, sorry, "active regulation" which is what they want us to say.
One thing I hate with GNE lately is how they claim they don't have the resources to do their own service work yet they sharp managed to pull out the resources out to cover an emergency rail replacement from Newcastle to Edinburgh the other evening, can only see things getting worse for that especially on upcoming Saturdays with Metro Replacements and Kynryn to provide resources for.
One thing I've gotta say is, it doesn't matter what the excuse is for disruptions, just one bad experience is enough to lose passengers, I've had months of cancellations from Arriva and now GNE services which I also tend to use are suffering from much the same fate (argubly worse from the latter now but was certainly the case from Arriva more in previous months)
One thing I will give Arriva and Stagecoach is they've at least reduced some frequencies to attempt to deal with the resource issues, granted there's still problems there whereas GNE seem to be sticking their fingers in their ears and going "la la la la la la la la" and act like everything's fine.