For our convenience ?

Further to March 21 post "no loo Inverness to Edinburgh".

Perhaps randomly by the right person being in the office, I got a reply to another incident of the stopping Citylinks failing to observe the Forth road bridge stop, which are not always answered at all and has been a recurrent problem ever since the present road layout was put in after the tolls were abolished. Getting an answer to this, I combined a response to it with asking again after the Inverness loo incident and how it had never been answered. So 8 months after it happened, I have extracted these thoughts from Citylink:

"Our coaches are equipped with on-board toilet facilities, however on the occasion where these are not functioning or an alterative vehicle without toilet facilities is used, the driver should make toilet stops for passengers. I am very sorry that on this occasion the driver did not make a toilet stop en route, however please note that he/she may not have known to do so unless a request was made by a passenger." and "If there are no toilet facilities or they are not functioning properly, the driver will make stops at the request of passengers. If you are not comfortable asking the driver to stop during the journey, then you can explain when boarding that you may need a toilet stop and the driver should schedule a stop en route."

Still none of this announced routinely to passengers: you have to suffer and complain and chase up a missing answer before you get this.

Perhaps at the time the blog post here made them decide it was scarier to answer than not, because the absence of a toilet at Broxden was clearly going to be indefensible in any answer they could give. "I can advise you that there are now toilet facilities at Perth Broxden, which were installed in April." Of course that's after we were there, and knowing that facility did not yet exist on the day we were there, they let that driver drive for 3 1/2 hours without any routine instruction to stop.

The present position is still unsatisfactory. They are sticking to making you make a request to the driver. That means you have to realise the situation as soon as you get on, and that is when he is busy checking everyone else on and loading the baggage. To make a request during the journey you have to distract the driver when on a fast road, which may be dangerous or not allowed, and it may be ages before he has any cause to stop. Has customer services thought of that? You have to know a good time to make the request, when travelling through remote country. Those are too much logical burdens to leave to passengers. The only way I can see it being safe to use these long distance services, is if I carry a printed copy of their email with me, so that if landed with a no toilet bus I can show the driver there is an instruction from a higher level to make a stop. You could carry a printed copy of this posting.

Maurice Frank