The real-life impact of heavy cuts to Bristol’s bus services has been laid bare after a range of passengers shared their experiences. Months of cuts to services, with more to come this spring, have left bus passengers worried, stranded, and regularly late for work.
It comes as Bristol Live launches its Better Buses for Bristol campaign. These passengers include a student worrying about getting to his A-level exams later this year, an NHS clinician forced to cancel patient appointments because of late buses, and a young mother stranded in the freezing cold with her toddler.
Not all the passengers spoken to for this article agreed Bristol’s bus services were “terrible”, with one person saying the services here had actually improved recently. First Bus, the city’s largest operator, said its services were improving and many more buses will be running from this April.
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Bristol has long suffered with poor public transport and heavy congestion, but problems appear to have become much worse in recent months. This is partly due to a dire shortage of drivers, and some local politicians also say the problem is a lack of regulation — leading to growing calls for West of England metro mayor Dan Norris to bring in bus franchising.
The metro mayor Dan Norris has previously said bus franchising — which would bring buses back under public control and regulation — is “under review”, but could take him six years to implement. The experiences of passengers have been published here to show how current problems with the Bristol region’s public transport are affecting people from all walks of life.
Sam Newington-Wise, a student, said: “I live in Filton and go to sixth form in Thornbury. Getting there was a pain as is, but back in March last year they cancelled the T2 service, which goes right past a road very near my house. Now I either have to rely on lifts from people or being dropped to one of the T1 bus stops, which is a 15–20 minute drive from my house. Those buses also only come every half hour, if you’re lucky. As I’m taking my A-Levels in a few months, the getting to sixth form part of the experience worries me.”
An NHS clinician, who asked to remain anonymous, said: “I have to get the bus daily to work in North Somerset due to the fact that I have epilepsy and hence have no option but to get public transport, as I can’t currently drive. I work as a clinician in the NHS, usually either in Clevedon, Nailsea or Portishead, I have to get an Uber approximately every two weeks due to buses not arriving, costing £25 each time, which is becoming very difficult considering the cost of living.
“I’m not going to be able to manage long term, and it is putting an ungodly amount of stress on what is already a very stressful time working for the NHS. There have been times where I’ve had to cancel some early patient appointments because of bus cancellations or being very late.”
Jayne Wright, from Frampton Cotterell, said: “My son has a learning disability and goes to Elm Tree Farm in Stapleton. He had local authority travel training to use the bus, but all the bus services to the farm have now been cancelled. That means all the service users plus the volunteers can no longer travel there by bus. Now the staff drive him and others to Tesco at Eastgate to get a bus, then we meet the bus in Downend to drive him home to Frampton Cotterell. One bus journey now involves two car trips and takes an hour and a half. He has no alternative.”
Asphodel Denning, who works in higher education, said: “Fewer and more sporadic bus services also means that every bus you do catch is absolutely packed. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve had to stand, holding my squirming toddler more often than not, for upwards of 20 minutes until the bus clears out enough to find a seat. Now that I’m pregnant again I’ve become more assertive about asking for a seat, but it’s still ridiculous that anyone should have to stand for longer than a couple of minutes.
“With a pram it’s even worse, as there’s often no room to manoeuvre or park it, and you end up evicting a handful of understandably annoyed people who now have to join the mob of passengers standing in an even tighter space. For those who require the use of wheelchairs or other mobility aids I can only imagine that this is even worse.
“I contacted First Bus twice over their dire service. Both were due to buses not showing up for over an hour, with no warning or explanation either time, in the middle of winter. I had my then-infant son with me both times, as well, and still get flashbacks of guilt for keeping him outside in the freezing cold for so long, but as I had no other method for getting home I was stuck.
“I used the complaint form on their site to explain what happened, and both times received, weeks later, only an extremely brief ‘sorry’ and a voucher for a single bus ride; nothing about how they’d aim to improve their services or any agreement that it was unacceptable.”
Lottie Batt, whose mother is disabled, said: “ I’ve regularly been on buses where my mum has really not been treated well by bus drivers. She has pretty severe mobility problems and despite asking the bus driver to wait while she sits down, the amount of times she has nearly fallen because the bus has just pulled off is just unacceptable really.
“The worst was when I was taking her back from Southmead Hospital. We sat at the bus stop for the bus we wanted to get on. I then spotted the bus we needed pulling into another one of the stops, not the correct one. The other people who sat with us ran over to get on that bus, but my mum can’t do that. The bus started to drive off and I started signalling to get the bus to actually stop, eventually — after practically throwing myself in front of it — the bus stopped, but the driver refused to pull into the stop.
“This meant that the bus was way too high for my mum to step on and I’m not sure the bus driver even made the effort to lower the bus. I practically had to pull my mum onto the bus, which properly humiliated her and just knocked her confidence about going out completely. The bus driver was incredibly rude when I spoke to him and also drove off before my mum was able to sit down. It's honestly disgusting, my mum is almost trapped because she doesn’t trust and feel safe on our city’s buses.”
One passenger, who declined to give their name, said: “I don’t think they’re too bad at the moment. Things were quite bad around October and I had a few buses cancelled but since then I think things have improved. It’s not perfect but definitely better and I wouldn’t say ‘terrible’. I’ve used buses regularly in a few cities over the past year and they’ve all struggled with getting drivers. I don’t think Bristol is any worse than any other cities. I use buses in London and Exeter quite a bit — Exeter’s service has been just as bad, maybe worse, and London has suffered with strikes lately.”
Responding to these accounts, First Bus said its service was improving, and will "significantly increase" the number of buses running from April.
A spokesperson for First West of England said: “We always aim to ensure that our customers have a good experience when travelling with us. We operate over 35,000 journeys and carry well over 1 million passengers every week, and we receive many commendations from our customers for the professionalism and level of service from our drivers and other staff.
“We don’t always get things right, but the reliability and punctuality of our services has improved significantly and everyone at First West of England is committed to delivering great service. Our driver recruitment campaign and high levels of staff retention are enabling us to improve our service, and we are looking forward to a significant increase in the number of buses being operated from early April, when we next update our timetables. Details of these changes will be confirmed in the coming weeks."
