Angry parents say buses to take their children to school have been delayed or cancelled since the Bee Network took over services.
Last week, the Manchester Evening News revealed parents had complained about the ‘horrifically late’ running of the 864 bus, which takes youngsters from Droylsden to St Damian’s RC school in Ashton-under-Lyne. On one occasion last week, the bus was nearly two hours late, and children didn’t arrive at school until 10:15am.
Now, another parent has come forward to say his child is facing a similar problem – this time in Stockport.
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Aftab Marchant says his 13-year-old son uses the public 42A bus to get to and from Manchester Grammar School in Fallowfield. The service was taken over by Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) on January 5, and incorporated into the publicly-controlled Bee Network.
“My son gets up at 6:45am and leaves the house at 7:10am to catch the bus,” Mr Marchant, 46, explained.
“We are tracking on the app, and so is he. It says due in eight minutes, then three minutes, then two minutes… then it never comes, and disappears from the app.”
“The one after is 45 minutes later. On Monday (January 6), my wife left work to pick him up. There were eight or nine children at that stop waiting and eight or nine children at the next one too.
“On Friday (January 10), the same thing happened. Honest to God, his lips were blue when I picked him — and up he had a big coat on.”
The dad believes the bus also didn’t show up as planned to take his lad home on Monday evening, meaning he caught a later bus and ‘got home at 6pm’.
While Mr Marchant believed the service was poor under previous operators Stagecoach, he says he’s been unable to get any answers from Bee Network staff.
He went on: “It’s like turning up at an airport, looking at the board and seeing your flight is there, turning up at the gate, and there’s no plane there. Then someone who works for the airline just says ‘I don’t know’.
“I asked [customer services]) ‘is the Bermuda triangle real? How can a big bus just disappear?’. She said she had investigated it and could not give me an answer.”
TfGM’s chief network officer, Danny Vaughan, has apologised for the disruption: “We are sorry for the delays on the 42A and the impact this had on pupils, parents and other users of this service”, he said.
“We are currently investigating a complaint about this and have spoken with the customer to discuss their concerns and have reassured them that we are working with the operator to ensure services are reliable, punctual and getting people to school and work on time.”