It's a feeling many of us are all too familiar with. The frustration and anxiety that comes with waiting at a bus stop, wondering if you'll make it to work on time.
Not only are bus services in Greater Manchester frequently unreliable, but a network of 830 services run by 30 operators using 150 different ticket types means fares are confusing and expensive. Yet all that could be about to change as Andy Burnham promises a major reform of our region's public transport system.
The mayor's proposed 'London-style transport revolution' would see a new charging system capping adult fares for a single journey at £2 and children at £1. A £1.2bn five-year programme of investment could also see a fleet of electric buses with a uniform livery, new bus lanes and corridors, boosted connectivity and frequency between towns and cities.
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But just how bad really is our current bus network? I decided to find out for myself by using them to commute from one part of Greater Manchester to another yesterday morning.
Setting out from Walmersley, a suburb just north of Bury, at 7.15am, I'm hoping to make it to Swinton, in Salford, by 9am. By car, the 13-mile journey takes just 20 minutes, but I'll need to catch three buses with an estimated journey time of 90 minutes, according to Google Maps.
When I arrive at the bus stop near to the Towler pub on Walmersley Road, Lucy Harkness is already waiting. She tells me that one bus has just gone while the next is not due for another 20 minutes.
My chances of making it to Swinton for 9am are already looking slim. As we wait, Lucy tells me that she commutes daily by bus from Walmersley to Bolton, where she works at the university.
After setting off for work shortly after 7am, she doesn't return home until around 12 hours later. The commute is “not bad”, she says, but the 471 bus from Bury to Bolton “never shows up”.
"People ask me why I don't drive but I can't afford to," Lucy tells me. "It's really expensive. These buses used to be really good but there are no drivers and the drivers they do have get abuse from people."
After about 20 minutes, a Rosso 483 bus pulls up. I hop on board and purchase an AnyBus 1-day ticket. It sets me back £6.40, which isn't cheap, but it means I can use any bus across Greater Manchester throughout the day.
It's relatively busy on board - no surprise given it’s the first bus in more than 20 minutes. Almost quarter of hour later, the bus arrives at Bury Interchange. I disembark ready to catch the 471 Diamond service to Bolton - the one Lucy has warned me about.
By the time it arrives - five minutes later than scheduled - the queue is at least 15 people deep. I take a seat on the busy top deck as the bus departs on the six-mile route from Bury to Bolton.
It's slow going for much of the way as we pick up passengers at almost every stop. As the bus continues to fill up, the driver is forced to pull over in Breightmet to remind people not to stand up on the top deck. Several passengers groan as they shuffle downstairs.
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We finally reach Bolton Interchange shortly before 8.50pm after a gruelling 40-minute journey. My hopes of reaching Swinton by 9am are long gone. “That was awful,” Lucy says to me as we step up off the bus. “One of the worst journeys I’ve experienced.”
While Lucy and my fellow passengers rush off to their respective workplaces, I search for the stop where I will board the 37 bus to Swinton - the final leg of my commute. Once I've found it, an electronic sign informs me that the bus is due in five minutes.
I take a seat in the waiting area, but spot a poster warning that services are subject to delays and cancellations due to 'roadworks and driver shortages'. It proves to be a sign of things to come as the bus I'm expecting suddenly disappears from the timetable without warning.
This development doesn't seem to come as a surprise to those around me. One man - who uses the bus several times a week - tells me it has a reputation for being late.
The 37 - operated by Diamond - eventually arrives shortly before 9.10am and following a change of driver, we're winding our way through the streets of Bolton.
I get chatting to Colin Ford, who is travelling home to Walkden after taking his car to a garage in Bolton. He says he rarely uses buses as they’re “not cost-effective to make short journeys”.
Before boarding the 37, the 62-year-old says he waited almost half an hour to catch a bus from the garage into Bolton town centre. "It’s a bit frustrating to be waiting that long for a bus that’s supposed to be every ten minutes,” he says.
"Myself and my wife are retired and we plan to use the buses more. It would make it more attractive if it was cheaper to do that. I've read that Andy Burnham wants to cap fares at £2 but I'm not sure if it's cost-effective."
As we reach Walkden town centre, the bus starts to fill up. The stoical commuters I encountered earlier in my trip are replaced by mums pushing prams and pensioners bearing bus passes allowing free travel after 9.30am.
I'm a short distance from my destination now and the novelty of my bus odyssey has worn off. At 9.50am - more than two-and-a-half hours after I started my commute - I hop off the bus outside Swinton Police Station.
I've made it. Shortly afterwards, I receive a message from a colleague informing me that I could have flown to Spain in less time. With that crushing realisation, I book an Uber back to Bury.
When I tell my driver what I've been up to, he launches straight into his own stories of public transport nightmares. "It's disgusting," he declares as he compares Greater Manchester's bus network to that of a "third world country".
It takes just 20 minutes before we're back in Walmersley. I'm relieved to have been spared another two-and-a-half-hour journey but, at £15, a taxi is clearly not a viable alternative for this commute.
One of the reasons I decided to make this journey is to highlight how broken Greater Manchester's bus network really is. Too often the discussion about public transport in our region focuses on links to and from Manchester city centre.
Yet poor links across our towns and suburbs make travelling by bus virtually impossible for many people. We need a public transport system that works for everyone, so that people are not held back by where they live.
As my experience showed, without having access to a car, it would be almost impossible for someone living in Bury to commute to a job in Swinton each day. And this is only one example of poor connections between two parts of our region.
If our leaders are serious about encouraging more people to use public transport then they must ensure an appealing system is in place. As it stands, a dysfunctional bus network means driving a car is the only realistic option for many commuters.
Yet many people are unable to afford their own vehicle, limiting the opportunities available to them. For Greater Manchester to thrive, we need investment in reliable transport links right across the region. Based on my experience yesterday, there is much work to be done.
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