Mushroom Management On TfL Buses
Transport for London or as all Londoners abuse them as TfL, are getting the masters at applying mushroom management to running the buses. Especially at the weekends.
For those of you not familiar with the last century term, it means keeping everybody in the dark and throwing in lots of manure. As in the 1970s, I used to live next door to a mushroom factory, I know it at least works with fungi, but I’m not sure of it’s effectiveness with fleets of buses about moving passengers.
Most Saturdays, I take a 141 bus to Moorgate and have a full English gluten-free breakfast in the Leon cafe there, as I like to set myself up for the weekend.
The 141 bus may be one of the least reliable buses in the capital, but last Saturday, I was dropped close to Liverpool Street station and yesterday, I was dropped under the Barbican.
No warning, advice or apology about the change of plan.
But then like the Mayor, TfL are never in the wrong.
Today was different!
After taking a 56 bus from near my house to the Angel I had another full English gluten-free breakfast in the Leon cafe there, before taking the Northern Line to Euston station.
I was hoping, I could take a trip somewhere, but there were extensive engineering works, so I just came home from Euston on the Overground via Willesden Junction station.
I ended up at Hackney Central station, where I did a bit of shopping in the excellent M & S Food shop.
Normally, I just get a 38 bus home from the side of the station, but there weren’t any around.
Again, there was no warning, advice or apology. Just loads of people looking for non-existent buses.
It was a full three hours before I completed my round trip.
Transport for London has no respect for its passengers.
Normal businesses would go bust, if they treated their customers like this.
The Anonymous Widower 
Same in Manchester, where Mayor Andy Burnham thinks he knows better than Stagecoach ho to run a bus service. The results have been poor at best: –
1. Reduced frequency on several routes.
2. Much poorer time keeping and reliability.
3. Poor driver behaviour especially on the flagship V1/V2 route (trumpeted by the Mayor, former MP for Leigh where they go), where buses repeatedly failed to stop to pick up when signalled – one only being stopped by my walking stick and not opening the doors [at the stop] until I refused to move out of its way.
4. Poorer phone app to show location of buses.
Stagecoach and others being municipalised have taken advantage too, swapping 15yo buses for 5yo ones on routes scheduled to get new buses from TfGM.
The tram system has been plagued with problems too.
To be fair not all bad, new night services and some other minor improvements and a Dutch style ticketing system in March (if it works – “Get Me There” took over ten years to get working)
Comment by R. Mark Clayton | October 6, 2024 |
Sounds like London, although the contactless system seemed to work first time. But then Peter Hendy was in charge.
Could it be that Burnham, has burned all his money on his flagship scheme to please his mates and he’s got nothing left to spend on the real problems.
It’s like SadIQ wasting money on renaming the Overground lines, which will confuse visitors.
Comment by AnonW | October 6, 2024 |
I see there is a complaints procedure on the Bee Network website. I hope the poor driver behaviour has been reported.
Comment by JohnC | October 6, 2024 |
“Transport for London has no respect for its passengers.”
I don’t agree with this. My experience is that they communicate well especially if you have the TfL app.
“Normal businesses would go bust, if they treated their passengers like this.”
Not sure if you live in the real world. My experience is that normal businesses do treat their customers badly but still seem to trade.
Comment by Graham | October 7, 2024 |
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