The Alternative Take Versus Brian Souter of Stagecoach Group PLC

Long story short; bus was late, Megabus is still shit, and there is still no men on Mars. Lets see how far we can take this one.


Brian Souter
Chairman of Stagecoach
10 Dunkeld Road
Perth
PH1 5TW
Scotland

Dear Mr Souter,

I am writing this letter in order to seek your advice. On Saturday the 28th of March I was on the Aberdeen to London Service, departing Aberdeen Bus Station at 19.15pm and arriving in London on the 29th of March at Victoria Coach Station at 7.05am for which I paid £15 for. The first coach we were on started making weird sounds and it was replaced just outside Cumbria after a 30 minute wait and a further drive. On arriving to the next bus we were then squeezed from an original double deck bus to a single deck bus – which, as you can imagine, was a very tight squeeze.

About two hours into the new journey on the new bus the bus was stopped and the driver got out of the bus and advised us that we would yet again have to be changing buses as the Emergency Exit at the rear of the bus was not working.

We drove a little further and got onto the third and final bus which, touch wood, was fine and in the end got us into London two hours late. When I initially booked the bus I also booked a subsequent train leaving from London Liverpool Street at just after 9 o’clock, giving myself a two hour gap in case of delays and in case there was Sunday morning congestion on the tubes. I thought this would be enough. It wasn’t. We arrived in Victoria at roughly 9.30 on the Sunday morning, and therefore I missed my connecting train.

Whilst I appreciate that buses can be susceptible to delays, I did not expect that a bus would be replaced simply because the Emergency Exit was not checked before the passengers got onto the second bus. This led the bus driver to drive exceptionally slow for a long period of time, and could have been avoided had the appropriate checks taken place. I use Megabus frequently, and never have I experienced such poor management of a bus service. I would not be complaining had I paid a mere £1 for my journey, but due to the fact that I paid £15 for the journey I felt I had to do something. My connecting train was of an initial price of £7, as it was pre-booked, but I had to pay £15 or so on arrival at Liverpool Street Station in order to catch the next train.

I’m severely disappointed as the delays could have been avoided and I, like many others, would not have suffered the delays we experienced.

I would appreciate a reply in writing.

Yours sincerely,

The Alternative Take


All this letter-writing makes me feel like Adrian Mole. I still have three essays I need to do for university. Uh oh.