6:30 a.m., three people standing here, only one bus goes by here, and he doesn’t even stop.
It’s obvious we were all standing here at the bus stop waiting for him at 6:30 in the morning when there’s no people, no traffic nothing else, around except us three people standing at a bus stop. All 3 grabbed a taxi instead and did not wait for the next bus.
It’s a simple concept, if a business wants to make money, they need to serve their customers and get money from their customers.
It’s like walking into a restaurant to get food and then the people act surprised that you want food. Like they think the priority is to make food and prepare it but not serve it.
I’ve had that happen before, usually the bus driver will move over a few lanes from the bus stop and ignore the people waving… guess he needs to be on time, even with no passengers on the bus.
I find there is a wide range of bus drivers in Taipei. From the ones who couldn’t care less to the ones who thank every passenger for getting on and off the bus. It’s part personality and part corporate culture. I think it was way worse 20 years ago. Especially Tayou bus company was notorious for speeding (sometimes racing with other buses from the same company; at least that was my impression).
For most part my bus riding experience nowadays is positive. In New Taipei City, the free community mini bus service has probably the worst drivers. I guess they are not getting paid that well. The bus line close to my building, the drivers sometimes smoke inside the bus when waiting, so the whole bus will stink, it’s really disgusting. They also often change the route to get back to their resting stop earlier (to smoke inside the bus) and are generally more on the rude side.
Overall I would give bus service in Taipei a 7 out of 10. Room for improvement for sure, but have come a long way already.
This is why I avoid taking the bus at all costs. Calling the service spotty would be way too polite. Drivers pick passengers up when they feel like it, and then either drive like a maniac or go 30 km an hour. And their lack of knowledge about basic driving skills is amazing. My favorite is the floor it, slam on the brakes, floor it, slam on the brakes technique. It’s not fun watching old people lose their balance and fall onto other passengers.
Last time I was on the bus, I got to watch the driver pick his nose while driving. Not sure where he put the boogers because it was out of my line of sight. And then there was the asthmatic driver who kept his mike on, so the whole bus was filled with the sound of heavy breathing with a moist rattle at the end. Finally there are the drivers that are super polite to every passenger, causing you to wonder when they’re gonna snap and go on a killing spree. OK, maybe that last one is my problem.
I agree, but here is an example of why they still make me scratch my head.
I take one particular line very often, and when getting on a certain bus type, I sometimes bump my head into the horizontal metal bar right above the last step of the back door entrance. I sent them an email pointing out that the bar is sliding down over time because it is not properly fixed at the vertical bar. When I took that same bus a few weeks later they had fixed the problem with a simple screw in the vertical bar. Hooray! Then, same time later I bumped my head against the horizontal bar again. Was another bus of the same model. So I wrote them again, pointing out that this is not good for tall people and the other buses of the same model all might have the same problem. Later I noticed that the bus (not sure which one) had the problem “fixed” with duct tape, but the bar was still way to low and the duct tape was not a good solution. Other buses are still there with the bar hanging low.
Now, I like that they seem to respond to complaints, but at the same time, why can’t they tell their maintenance guys to fix that simple problem in all buses of that type running on that particular route the same way, so that the problem not longer exists? In more organized countries like Japan this would be a no-brainer. Here it’s brain-pain, quite literally.
Taipei. I imagine it’s probably worse in other parts of Taiwan. On the plus side, I don’t have to worry about being mugged on the bus like I would back home.
