CITYLINK has already been a problem for us. The grassroots compilation book by ANS (Autism Network Scotland) that we took part in, An Ordinary Life Too (PDF book link), which became a guide document for the autism strategy, contained an item on Citylink's arrogant period of unilaterally seizing bus passes when they did not work. Giving up the pass is supposed to be a choice, with paying the fare or not travelling on that bus being other choices: yet stories came from No 6 of folks having their passes arrogantly retained by Citylink, then the replacements taking to come in the week validity of the temporary paper one, resulting in the unjustly unplanned cost of days without a pass. We exposed that.
Now look at this, as written to the Transport department. So Citylink now is not even operating with consumer honesty towards folks who book seats in advance, from smaller stops: actually not honouring their travel. So that it can't be used to travel to anything important that is at all time-critical !!
Oct 14 - Most of the Citylink coach routes are a core part of transport, not a fringe part that could be done without, but one of the essentials joining it up. Keeping them in functional existence therefore is an innate part of transport policy, and transport policy would not exist if that was simply left to the operator as a private sector company. If the operation ceases to be to a consumer trustable standard that folks travelling to important things can rely on, then it is a transport policy public matter to arrange that the services are operated by someone else who will follow a consumer trustable standard. That intervention is part of having a transport policy at all.
When folks travel to Glasgow to take part in the work of an organisation like the Autism Network Scotland or any consulting or researching types of work towards social wellbeing or making findings to influence policy, then the transport's reliabliity affects the doing of that work, for all of the sectors of society it concerns. That gets damaged if transport functions without consumer reliability. That combined with how, in work like ANS's on the autism strategy, transport's consumer reliability is one of the topics it includes. Any piece of transport as infrastructurally key as the Citylink routes are, has its reliable existence in any form be an issue of this impacting nature. When a private sector operator abandons consumer reliability, intervention to replace that operator's services becomes a necessity, towards economic functioning, public sector work as described, and public policy.
If what a Citylink driver said on Oct 12 was right, that drivers are ever simply not informed of prereserved bookings by passengers from internediate stops, not informed to prevent a coach from becoming full before if reaches a prebooked passenger and being unable to pick up that passenger, then such a practice places you in that position. According to that driver it applies to stops on the 900 route, Baillieston being the one where it happened. But if it applies there, how much of Citylink's network does it apply to? and can prebooked pick-ups at remote Highland locations where it would be dangerous if not, be relied on safely? Even on the 900, if prebookings are open to dishonouring and fullness can happen, then rightly timed attendance at important occasions, such as impact on public work, ceases to be possible for attenders to plan.
It happened on the 1015 900 from Glasgow. It was full right from starting point. As a result, if no prebookings were known of it was pointless that it still drove via Baillieston, but it did, and found 3 folks there who had prebooked places on this coach, which the driver was now telling them, was full and they could not board.
The driver was fully on their side that they were suffering a wrong: there is nothing against him. But the position he described to them was shocking. That drivers are not told of passenger bookings at its intermediate stops, and can't know to keep seats for them!! Which makes the bookings a consumer falsehood. Those folks had a need to travel at that time, that was why they had booked. That was the product they had bought and relied on honouring of.
My absence from the coach would not have helped a group of 3, but would have helped a passenger who it could not take at Buchanan. As I was travelling to the "Ratho station" stop (to change to a local bus there), there were 2 simultaneous coaches departing at 1015 and I could have been on the AIR instead. As it had a lot of space on it, clearly I should have been on it, instead of occupying another seat on a full 900. When I arrived at Buchanan I actually did board the AIR first. Its driver should have said they were equally good to catch, and taken me. But instead, he told me the 900 was quicker.
If that happens again, I will know from this experience to argue against it. But as I live in the east, it is rare to travel eastward in the morning, so I had no experience to forsee the 900 being full. So I was on the 900 only because I was directed so by the AIR's driver, directing me off a spacious coach and onto a near-full one to other passengers' detriment! Quickness is trivial in that context even if he had been right. In fact he was also wrong about that, as the 900 was the second coach to depart and the incident with the betrayed passengers at Baillieston itself cost all speed advantage over the AIR's detour at Eurocentral, so this 900 was not quicker. I should have been on the AIR by absolutely any argument. The fullness that hit the Baillieston passengers had been contributed to by wrong organising of passengers!
With this of course also complained to Citylink: how does Citylink tell you, and me and those passengers conned by worthless reservations, committally not noncommittally that it is fit to continue to be the trunk route coach operator?
