Crowded Buses

[artthouwill]

Agree with Wolfman!

If I remember correctly (it's been a long, long time!), we were told during instruction never to blow by bus stops with folks waiting, no matter how full our bus is. People get angry when they get passed up. They feel ignored and don't like waiting for the next bus. In most folks' minds, there's always room for one more inside a crowded bus.

We were told the correct solution is to stop, open the doors, and give the folks a chance to squeeze in until THEY decide they can't. Hopefully, when doing this causes you to run hopelessly late, your follower (who will be on your tail) will pull up behind you, stop, and give the folks a less crowded bus to board. Either that, or your follower, who is sympathetic to your plight, will go around you while you're stopped and make the next stop... and the two of you will play leapfrogging buses (except when someone needs to exit) all the way home. Doing that tends to even out the load and help maintain times.

This is always a sensitive subject. Once while driving for Huskie Line, I fell behind schedule to the point my follower wound up immediately behind me. While I had now become empty, there was a lady waiting for the bus. Since I knew my follower was right behind me (I saw her in my mirror literally 100 feet behind me), I passed her up. Later that day, I got an earful from MY FOLLOWER for not picking up that lady. If my follower wasn't visible, I would have. What was the big deal?

At the same time, if the lead driver is full and stops anyway, the follower could go around, but what if there is no room on the lead bus? Now the passengers waiting at the bus stop are stranded because the first bus is full and the second went around. To me, if it is that obvious that a particular bus is packed to capacity, he should be allowed to pass up waiting passengers ONLY if his follower is immediately behind. I actually saw something close to this recently on Western. The lead bus, which wasn't packed to capacity, would pass up passengers so that our bus would pick up. We would go around that bus only if he had to make a stop and we didn't. It actually made for a quick ride. Leapfrogging does work.