A Bus Rant
The other day while going to Manhattan the express bus I was on pulled over to the side of the road after the last stop but before getting on the highway. We sat there for over 15 minutes with no explanation from the bus driver. Then the bus driver started the bus up and continued to drive to our destination without any further issues.
At the time of morning when we stopped a 15 minute delay costs you 20 minutes or more on the rest of the trip as the road gets more congested. I understand that there are myriad things that can go wrong with a bus that would cause it to be pulled out of service but this bus, apparently, didn’t suffer from any of them as the driver completed the trip after the delay.
People take a bus at certain times for specific reasons. Usually it’s because they need to be somewhere by a certain time. Yes, there’s always a risk that a bus will break down causing those people to be late. But this bus obviously had not broken down.
The thing that annoyed me the most about this was that there was no communication from the driver to the passengers on why he had stopped and no explanation on why he started up again. Every single person on that bus was a paying customer of the bus company so I’d expect the common courtesy of an announcement explaining why we’ve stopped.
Like it or not the bus driver is the only representative of the bus company most riders will ever see. If you (the bus driver) take good care of your passengers and give them a good experience on their commute not only will they feel better about the bus company but they will feel better about you. Rather than see scowls on their faces as they hand you their tickets while boarding you’ll see smiles (at least polite grins) and hear greetings (hello, good morning, etc.). Also, the experience someone has on their morning commute affects the rest of their day.
It may not occur to most drivers but if people have good experiences on the bus they tend to look forward to a trip instead of dreading it. Most customers I know who use this bus service on a regular basis hate it. Since my experience with the service itself has been pretty good (they’re usually close to schedule and get you where you’re going in a timely manner even if they have to take alternate routes) this can only be attributable to customer service. And customer service starts with the person the riders see most: their bus driver. This particular company’s phone representatives are not particularly good either and could use some improvement but when you compare the number of times you call them on the phone to the number of times you see a driver the need for an improvement in the drivers attitudes toward the customers becomes far more apparent.
Every time the driver’s union contract comes up there’s talk about a strike. I feel for the drivers in those situations and understand that they are trying to protect their livelihood. But they need to understand that their livelihood affects the livelihood of others. It would be nice if they would behave that way to those others.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.