A Rude Bus Commuter

It has been a while since I met by a rude bus commuter, which made me witness the use of the communicator located on our SBS Transit bus for help by the bus captain for the 1st time. I must say I am still stunned by the bus commuter’s rude attitude, as she is from Europe, from the way she looked.

This incident prompted me to write an e-mail to SBS Transit a while ago. The email is as follows:-

I am one of a frequent commuter by bus as due to me being physically challenged and I hate squeezing with the crowd on the MRT. I had boarded this Service 128, as it was the bus approaching the bus stop at that time. I do know that the service does not stop at Novena, Toa Payoh, Braddell MRT stations, but I have seen passengers who boarded this bus, misunderstanding that it runs a similar route to Service 162 or Service 54.

Today, a Caucasian lady must have mistaken the bus as Service 162. When this Service 128 did not stop at Newton Road, when she pressed the stop bell, she was rather angry and yelled at the bus captain as to why she did not stop the bus at the Newton Road bus stop, which was the non-stop sector of Service 128.

I thought that the Malay lady bus captain was rather calm and she tried to explain the passenger the reason of why she cannot stop the bus at any of the bus stops on the non-stop sector of the route. When she failed, she actually approached the Operations Control Centre for help. The Operations Control Centre officer, actually tried to calm down the passenger, but to no avail. A female passenger, who sat beside me, tried to help the bus captain to advise the passenger how to get to where she wanted to go, but she refused to take the advice. I think this angered another female passenger who shouted at her to go back to her own country and stop putting our lives at risk by quarreling with the bus captain. I personally feel that the bus captain was rather calm in handling the situation.

This incident also brought up points for SBS Transit to ponder.

1. For services that run parallel or is an express service that is running parallel to a normal service, a sign should be put up on the bus that says which are the stops that the express service or parallel service do not stop. This would reduce misunderstandings, like the one described above.

2. When a bus captain contacts the OCC for help, shouldn't it have advised the bus captain to stop the bus so that the bus captain would not be distracted by driving and communicating with the OCC at the same time?

On this note, I would like to compliment the Malay lady bus captain for her calmness in handling the situation.

Based on what I have shared in my blog, a few days ago about The Madness Of MRT Delays, I mentioned Service 128 was a service that runs parallel to the North-South Line from Yio Chu Kang MRT to Shenton Way Terminal, I did not know I have to come back to this post so quickly. =)