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With grateful thanks to Edinburgh Evening
News
Pensioner kicked off bus on road bridge
SAM HALSTEAD -
A STUNNED pensioner was ordered off a Stagecoach bus at the
Forth Road Bridge - after the driver refused to let her pay to
extend her journey.
Isa Little, 72, used her free bus pass when she caught the
number 55 from the centre of Edinburgh to visit her
grandchildren in Inverkeithing.
When the bus driver told her that her pass would not cover her
travel in Fife, she assumed it would be easy to pay the fare for
the final part of her journey.
But when the bus reached the Fife "border" the driver refused to
accept her £1.10 fare and insisted she get off the bus.
Despite her protests, she had to get off and wait by the bridge
for the next number 55 to come along 20 minutes later. Only then
was she able to pay her £1.10 and continue her journey to
Inverkeithing.
Stagecoach today apologised to Mrs Little, and blamed the
blunder on confusion over the new free bus pass system.
But Mrs Little, who lives in Tranent, East Lothian, was still at
a loss to understand why the fiasco happened in the first place.
She said: "I think it was terrible. I have been travelling with
a bus pass for 11-and-a-half years and nothing like this has
ever happened before.
"The driver said I had to get off. I said: ‘could I get off and
get back on again,’ but he said I was not allowed to do that. I
didn’t mind paying the £1.10 fare. He said I couldn’t do that."
Mrs Little said she had been told when she got on the bus at St
Andrew Square Bus Station that her pass would only allow her
free travel up to the edge of Fife. Her pass is valid for free
travel in Midlothian, East Lothian and Edinburgh.
However, she had never guessed there would be a problem paying
the last bit of her journey.
Mrs Little was told "rules are rules" when she complained to
Stagecoach. But the company’s behaviour was today criticised by
East Lothian MSP John Home Robertson, who agreed to take up her
case. He said: "This is incredible behaviour from Stagecoach. At
a time when the Scottish Executive is trying to encourage
greater use of public transport, this kind of incident only
reduces confidence in our public transport system.
"I have written to Stagecoach in Fife asking them to apologise
and to adopt a more flexible approach."
Edinburgh City Council also insisted there was no good reason
Mrs Little should not have been allowed to pay for the remainder
of her journey to Fife.
A council spokeswoman said:
"Travellers can go to the last stop in the boundary on their
pass. They then pay the fare for the remainder of their journey.
This is hopefully an isolated incident."
Stagecoach admitted today that the driver had broken company
guidelines by asking Mrs Little to leave the bus, and apologised
to the pensioner. However a spokesman insisted Stagecoach
"technically" had to ask passengers to leave if the bus crossed
into an area where a concessionary ticket was not valid.
"The concessionary fares scheme is administered by local
authorities and operates according to boundaries. Often this
means passengers technically can’t cross the boundary without
getting off the bus.
"It is a ludicrous situation, but we are 100 per cent on the
side of our passengers and have issued guidance to our drivers
to use common sense to try to ensure no-one is inconvenienced by
these ridiculous rules.
"We entirely sympathise with Mrs Little and would like to
apologise for letting her down in this case."
Pensioners get free local off-peak travel on buses in a scheme
paid for by the Executive, but run by East Lothian, Midlothian
and Edinburgh councils. An Executive spokeswoman said: "The
administration of the Lothians travel scheme is a matter for the
participating councils." |
