Originally Posted by
MerchantVenturer
I've seen pax left behind at the airport at busy times but never at the station and I'm there at least once a week.
In fairness, I've only seen it happen twice in that direction but it's pretty critical for passengers when it does. IMHO, if the service is to grow any further, they are likely to need a real-time method of appraising demand and a spare coach available, at least at certain times, possibly at both ends of the journey.
The other thing that infuriates me is seeing new arrivals to Bristol habitually greeted by a harrassed driver with no change. I realise that they can't turn the coaches into Bureaux de Change but the now familiar experience of the other passengers rooting around for notes and coins so that some poor travelling soul can be spared the indignity of being sent back into the terminal to scavenge the correct money, sometimes to the tune of "You've got two minutes, my love" or similar, needs to be addressed.
This is normally at the airport end; I'm sure it wouldn't be beyond the wit of the company to come to some arrangement with the airport whereby a member of staff relieves the driver of his ticketing role at that end, or is simply on hand for each coach departure to bank some takings and refresh the "float".
As they also need to manage the queue better at busy times, as I've seen at least one substantial disagreement, selling the tickets in the terminal is perhaps going to be the way to kill several birds with one stone.
Originally Posted by
MerchantVenturer
I suppose the fact that the coach is sometimes full at the station end reinforces my view that the Flyer service is popular and viable as a means of getting rail pax to the airport, but it must operate efficiently or people will cease to use it.
Indeed.