Features The Wheels on the Bus
You'll no doubt have noticed there's no Burgertime this month. Well, Jon was beginning to feel queasy after all the cold food, and Nathan was beginning to look a tad podgy, so instead we have for you a review of... (wait for it)... the 929 Bristol to Taunton bus service!

Our fearless leader (that's Nathan) decided that in the interests of all concerned he would make the journey alone. (Alright, so Jon evaded taking part by pulling the old overworked student routine.)

How Does It Work?
Nathan singlehandedly, alone and with neither a support team or a safety harness, boards the bus at Bristol's central bus station (currently up for sale - place your bid now!). He gets off at Wells. This journey, according to the timetable, should take about an hour. In this time, he ponders the solutions to these familiar, yet slightly different questions:
  1. Ambiance: What's the atmosphere on the bus like? Is everybody singing Cliff Richards songs? Or is there a Mexican standoff at the back of the bus between the drunks and drug addicts?
  2. Staff: How helpful and polite are the staff? Do they make you want to take them with you when you get off the bus? Or do they make you want to walk?
  3. Speed: How close to the timetable is the service? Is it as reliable and on-time as Big Ben? Or is it as reliable and on-time as an issue of YS3?
  4. Comfort: Are there big comfy armchairs all round for you to snuggle down in and go to sleep? Or is the ride so bumpy you feel like you've been in a giant spacehopper?
  5. Value for Money: Are the fares mere tokens, covering the bare necessities of bringing you a bus service? Or does the price on the ticket bear more resemblance to the national debt?
  6. Overall: The overall impression and enjoyment factor.
The Service: 929 Bristol to Taunton
Departure Time: 15:20
Arrival Time: 16:10 (Wells)
Single Fare: £1.75 (£3.15 weekdays)
Return Fare: £3.00 (£4.75 weekdays)

Ambiance: 8/10
Typically for a Sunday afternoon, there were very few other passengers. On a typical weekday at the same time, I would have been guaranteed a minimum of two drunks, complete with can of Special Brew, preying on the weak and defenceless with rather unlikely and decidedly unpleasant tales of what they did in the war/in a London gang/last Tuesday. As it was, I counted myself lucky only to be sharing the bus with a couple of students.

Staff: 7/10
A passenger's relationship with their driver is a simple and unerringly brief one. This particular driver appeared pleasant enough; however, eavesdropping on his conversation with another driver at the station revealed that he had been moved from the main, city centre services due to his behaviour towards a complaining passenger. This did not inspire me with confidence as we left the station.

Speed: 9/10
Unusually, today's bus was actually a couple of minutes early, both leaving and arriving. A pleasant surprise given previous experience and the 'don't blame us' attitude of the electronic timetable. ('Everything's okay, but if anything does go wrong it's not our fault, got that?')

Comfort: 2/10
I am convinced that the people who designed the bus I rode on today must have owned a car from the day they were born, and was inflicting this nightmarish seating on us commoners out of class-driven spite. Although there were no less seats than on an average bus, the seats that there were were so narrow as to force you to sit in a position as vertical as a crash test dummy. My alternative (tirelessly enhanced on from many months of travel on similar vehicles) is to take up two seats and sit sideways. The only downside is that if the bus stops suddenly, you'll fall on the floor. Today's posture of preference was a forty-five degree turn, with one foot on the floor.

Value for Money: 5/10
Given the distance travelled, the fares are reasonable enough. However, given the seating, I feel it is only fair that the passengers should be paid to make up for the extreme trauma of trying to sit on the bus for anything up to two hours.

Overall: 6/10
Naturally the service varies with both the time of day and the day of the week; the evening journey back to Bristol was a much more pleasant one, while rush hour journeys are a nightmare only a battery chicken would feel comfortable in. This is all taken into account in my final score. There is room for improvement, clearly, and hopefully FirstBus will take our points into consideration and make the blimming seats bigger.



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