First

I get on a First bus every weekday to travel to and from work in the city centre. The services really are unpredictable. You just never know if it will be one of those days when buses run on time, or if they’ll do things like run two buses together or make you wait 40 minutes at the bus stop to get home. It’s always a surprise.
Customer service is improving slightly. First still employ some of the old school drivers (the rude, miserable ones) but occasionally now I am noticing that some new faces behind the bullet proof screens who don’t seem to hate the public quite as much.

Constantly late, over priced, smelly, dirty, loud, polluting death traps.
Why can every city in the world have a working public transport system and in Bristol they don’t even turn up sometimes!!! You can not do that. You are there, subsidies by the government, endorsed and forced upon us with the lack of parking and stupid one way systems and we give in. We say yes, we’ll get the bus because it’s the only way to get around Bristol. AND THEN YOU DONT TURN UP!
It’s cold. People have meetings. Appointments.
— just sort it out.

Await citizens!
Our very own Bus Service is here (is it? Seriously?)
Well, you can write a book of the size of a Bible, but, I am afraid, that still, you won’t be able to cover, what are the things which are wrong with this Bus Service Provider!
Everything, literally everything is wrong with this Service Provider!
The fares rip you off and to add to your misery, they are never on time. Wait, so? They can still come. Alas! No! Sometimes, they just don’t, yes, they just don’t turn up!!!
I missed movie shows, appointments, meetings, farewells and, the list is endless just for this disgusting bus service. And, the Company is unmoved. They don’t care!
The Bus Number 24 is the best one! It comes in a pair!!! Because they are always late! And sometimes to add to the misery, they don’t turn up! You call up the helpline and they say, they are coming!!!
Like today, the 15:55 didn’t come, the 16:05 one was late. And they came in pairs. We tried to stop the first one, it speeded off! The second one in an act if mercy picked us up!
Ah, the drivers are rude. Not all of them, but most of them!
God knows why still the Council is giving them the transport Contract.
In Other cities there are other Service Providers who charge you less, are polite and yes, turn up on time. Hahaha, dot on time!!!
There is no option of giving 0 *, or minus *. That’s why had to give 1 * !

It would take forever for me to write about all the things that are wrong with First.
I have missed many important meetings and been into work late too many times, sometimes an hour and a half late, because of first. I have missed other buses and trains because First cannot keep to a schedule, or provide alternatives when their buses are late or break down.
However one of my most recent dealings with First is one of the worst. I asked for a FirstWeek South West, which should cost me £24. I paid the bus driver £24 and he gave me a printed off card. The card had £24 printed on it. However the next day when I came to use My WEEK bus ticket the machine said it had expired and so the bus driver would not accept it. He said it was just a FirstDay South West, despite that they only cost £6.50 and I pointed out it said £24.
He suggested I go into the ticket office at the bus station. The only problem being that it is not yet open when I am there in the morning and has already closed by the time I arrive back in the evening. And of course there are no staff that can help!
The customer services over the telephone told me I would have to post my ticket off to Exeter, however I am weary that I will send it off and that will be the last I hear of it. So until I can sort it out I am £24 out of pocket and have had to pay twice for one week of buses.
Not to mention that on the same day my bus was cancelled so I had to catch a later one, which they told me would definitely be faster than the normal route, it did not, I ended up getting into work an hour late.
The only time I ever really get stressed in my life outside of work is when I am dealing with First. If I go prematurely grey it will be their fault.

The great thing about Bristol’s bus service is because the city’s so small you don’t usually have to use it. I have long given up on attempting to go anywhere with the buses, which are slow, poorly routed and really, really expensive (my kingdom for an Oyster card…).
The punctuality record is appalling, they never stop where you want them to (I don’t know who designed the routes) and just about the only plus point I can think of is that the buses themselves are relatively modern and comfortable.
Instead I use the far more efficient little train which has a stop near me and goes just about everywhere I usually ever want to go. With a 16 – 25 railcard it clocks in at a lot cheaper as well at 75p per journey (which most of the time you don’t even have to pay as they never ever seem to check).

I love it! The one thing most people are universally agreed on is how poor the bus service is! I am not even necessarily talking about the bus routes, timetables and journey times, I’ll get to that later, I am talking about the drivers themselves; the customer service. Why is bus driver (and Wolf from Gladiators) the only profession that allows you to be really rude, obnoxious and horrible to people all the time?! Ok my dad was a bus driver so I know how hate filled it makes them; the frustrations and the loathing of the general public, but not everyone deserves to have that channelled towards them!
My girlfriend, who uses the bus everyday and continuously pays different sums of money for the same journey, was thrown off a bus because the driver misunderstood what stop she meant and thought she was trying to steal a free ride! It was one stop! Have you ever heard of anything so ridiculous! She hasn’t stolen anything in her life and she certainly didn’t want to do First buses out of 4 pennies worth of petrol. Not only did he throw her off the bus, he did it at night when she was on her own and miles away from home. Sickening behaviour and don’t forget we pay (way too much) to use this service.
In terms of the bus routes, they all take ages, the buses don’t come often enough and they cost too much. But if you don’t know Bristol the number 8 or 9 are what you want to be aiming for, they will take you around most of the city and back to the station.

I have had very mixed experiences of First Buses. Initially I’d say they offer a decent service, especially the regular service between Bristol Temple Meads, the town centre and Redland/​Clifton. These buses, the number 8 and 9, run every 10 – 20 minutes and are used by a lot of students. However, some of the drivers are appalling with one deliberately not stopping for me despite it being the last bus of the night. I complained and First apologised and said they would be taking disciplinary action against the driver so I’m guessing this is the exception rather than the norm. Get on one of these buses late at night and you may well find yourself sat next to some drunk slumped over their can of special brew but then you’d probably get that on any bus, especially the night buses in London. First Buses Bristol are certainly a lot better than First Great Western trains in terms of value for money and punctuality.

What I don’t understand is, why does it take the same amount of time for the bus to drive to the station as it does for me to walk?
Also, why do empty buses rattle past my window all day (when in service) but they never drive past the bus stop when I’m waiting for one?
No joke, I just looked out my window again and there was yet another, with not a sole on board! A city like this needs a good public transport system, what with the hilliness making it harder to walk and cycle and the traffic diabolical due to tiny windy roads. We need a solution and fast!

Basically, poor, poor service in my opinion. I might be a little Europeanly biased about this (as the transport system just works, smoothly), but I don’t feel that after waiting 20 minutes for a bus that doesn’t even come (which has been the case more often than not when I’ve used them in the past few years) the best part of £4 (when it eventually does) to go 10 minutes down the road in to town is worth it, in any way at all. That’s probably quite a sweeping and harsh comment, but basically I see the First Bus as ridiculously over priced for a service which just doesn’t work efficiently. It’s no incentive, in any way, to really get people out of their cars and into public transport. And with constant price rises (which I’ve heard have been justified with the intent of buying more buses, eventually (which will then improve the service)) it seems simply a dodgy money making scheme — and raising money to make your service better in a few years time seems very bad business logic to me. Poor show.

Oh dear me, Bristol’s buses are pretty diabolical. I lived in London for a while, and there you can hop on a bus any time of day (that’s right, they have night buses), pay 90 p and quickly get to where you want to go.
Bristol’s buses fail on all three counts. You can’t hop on a bus, because they’re never around. Many are the stories I’ve heard of people being stranded in the middle of nowhere when a bus fails to materialise (The conversation in my head is always the same when this happens — after fifteen minutes I think to myself ‘I’ve been waiting ages, I could just walk. But then it might come any second now.’, this is repeated every five minutes until the bus comes)
The prices are ridiculous, with £2.50 for a single being a regular occurrence — that means £5 return. Then, to top it all off Bristol’s traffic means it can be just as fast to walk, especially if it’s a short ride through the centre. First have been given a monopoly on the bus service here and what’s been given in return is a let down for the city of Bristol.