h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I am so fed up with this happening and think it's a real scam for those who pay their fares in cash. I was travelling home from work on a 141 bus from Southgate Road N1 to Palmers Green. When I got on the 141 the destination displayed was Palmers Green. The bus terminated in Harringay with no announcement from the driver. We all got off and waited for the next bus. It was a 141 apparently going to Palmers Green. This route was also terminated early - again with no driver announcement - at Wood Green. Again we all got off and waited for a 3rd bus. Apparently when this happens, those who pay with the prepaid tickets are entitled to ask for them back and use the retrieved ticket to continue the journey. This doesn't happen as the ticket has to be matched up with the serial number on the ticket stub and drivers are not willing to look for them. I've tried to tell the driver on the next bus what happened and the respoonse is "well, this is a different bus and you have to pay". Oyster card users get charged triple charge when this happens. I think this is a disgrace. Why should we have to pay extra when we've already paid for our journey? I've e mailed Ken Livingstone about drivers behaviour on buses (verbally abusive and racially abusive) and didn't even get an acknowledgement of receipt of my e mail so it's probably a waste of time trying to contact him again. Someone should seriously look into this. London buses are a disgrace - filthy and smelly and travel on them when the school kids are using them and you'll find yourself picking your way through fast food chicken bones that have been discarded without thought. It's time obnoxious Ken gave up and someone who cares takes over!

This happens in Manchester too.

The A6 is the main arterial road into Manchester (it's the old Carlisle-London road from the days before motorways). From the south, it's the route of the 192 bus, which should in an ideal world begin in Hazel Grove (south of Stockport, marking the boundary between Greater Manchester and Cheshire) and terminate in Manchester city centre.

However! Get a 192 in the city centre and you have a lottery of four possible destinations. If you live there and are lucky, you can travel the full route to Hazel Grove.

As often as not the 192 will terminate at Stepping Hill Hospital, some way short of Hazel Grove. This now appears to be terminus of preference for this bus with only a relative few travelling the mile or so on to Hazel Grove.

Some only go as far as Stockport Bus Station.

Recently a fourth even shorter terminus for the 192 has been re-introduced: Lloyd Road depot in Levenshulme, quite a long way north of Stockport!


What it boils down to is that you really have to be alert to be sure the 192 you get on travels to where you want to go. The buses that stop way short at Lloyd Road are marked as such - but in incredibly tiny lettering underneath the great big "192" on the destination board.

And with the growing tendency for the route to terminate at Stepping Hill, rather than the county boundary at Hazel Grove, people resident south of Stepping Hill are sure that this is a stealth method of shortening the route and bringing the terminus a mile or so north, so that one day it no will no longer serve them, and they have no direct bus into Manchester.

Their fears are not paranoid: there used to be a 190 bus that started way out in the Cheshire countryside and went into Manchester via Hazel Grove and the 192 route (ie, this bus started four or five miles further out, but once in the county followed the 192 route into the city).

Stagecoach were quick to scrap this as "unprofitable" once they got control of South Manchester's buses. So will the 192 from/to Hazel Grove become a memory?

and of course:

you may THINK you have got on the correct 192 bus for your needs. Let's say you've done a big shop in Manchester and you reside in Hazel Grove and are looking forward to getting home. Just because the bus SAYS "192 - Hazel Grove via Stockport" on the front is not a 100% guarantee.

Yuo arrive at Stockport Mersey Square. An inspector gets on and confers with the driver. The driver is then told to terminate not in Hazel Grove but at Stepping Hill, as this means the 192 route can then maintain its timetables, et c, and not be financially penalised by the GMPTE.

Hazel Grove residents on the bus protest, and end up in the sort of situation Ellie describes in her first posting - they have to get off in Stockport, and wait for another bus, with no guarantee the next driver will honour their tickets.

Oh, and are people UPSTAIRS on the bus warned that the terminus has now been moved? Of course, they are not...

Sometimes the driver receives his "change of terminus" information by radio rather than in person. This makes it more of a lottery as to whether he tells his passengers or not...

I noticed that the C11 bus route in North London used to do this. Im not sure now as I rarely dare to get on this route. I remember one day walking about a mile only to realise that 2 buses which should have been going to Archway ended up outside Parliament Hill Feilds.