It's them again...

This isn't much fun I know but here's my (very measured I felt) complaint to Firstbus from today...My personal theory is that the drivers get behind schedule so they let them turn off the lights and bugger off back to the depot to avoid paying them overtime. There's often a 40 minute gap in the period between the daytime and evening timetable. So you wait 45 minutes for a bus that's supposed to be 'every 10 minutes or less' just as everyone is trying to get home and when one does finally arrive it sits there waiting for time, it being, presumably, the first bus of the evening timetable.

They can blame the traffic all they want but I think someone should make them act like they had some responsibility to run a service and to get people to the places they've usually already paid to get to. I hate Firstbus and their contempt for anything but making money out of their monopoly service...Anyway,like I say, I thought this very polite - think of what I could have said!

Dear Firstbus. I bought a Dayrider today - and have just walked all the way home from the Headrow in Leeds City Centre! I wanted to get a 49, 50 or 50A bus but you weren't running any.

I got into town at about 6.30pm (changing from a number 2 from Middleton) and walked along the route (which I know well) until getting home (about 5 minutes from the nearest stop on Easterly Road) at just before 8 o'clock. In all that time not a single bus passed me. I waited for short periods at the Playhouse, Quarry House, St James's, the end of Harehills Road and the bottom of Easterly Road. There were even buses showing as being due (eventually) on the 'TV' screens but none arrived and none passed me.

Even following the evening timetable there should have been at least 4 buses in this time! Too often there's a gap of around 40 minutes between buses at this time of day (and sometimes buses that had clearly been on the route are suddenly 'out of service' despite the fact there hasn't been one for ages) but this was an exception even by your low standards.

I know there will be traffic problems etc that you can't predict but there were certainly no road delays along this route between town and Dib Lane. I think you should run a regular service and I think you should run all the buses on the timetable. It surely must be possible to get relief buses running or relief drivers called in or whatever.

I don't think having a gap in the timetable for an hour and more when people are trying to get home is acceptable. I bought a Dayrover with the reasonable expectation that there would be buses running along this route at a busy time of day to get me home. This isn't the first time this sort of thing has happenend and I'm fed up of it. I don't want to be offensive but I think this is taking the Mickey.

I think you should at least give me part of my Dayrider money back. That cost me £4.60 on bus 37116 (service 13) at 8.39am - tkt no 34077.

Yours sincerly

John Parkes