Dear Residents
We have received this information from First Bus.
Keeping services running
While many other businesses have made the difficult decision to close their doors, buses are different. Working with Governments in England, Scotland and Wales we are able to maintain lifeline services through this period. We are very proud to be serving you at this time and particularly proud of our frontline teams who are showing tremendous resilience, dedication and overwhelming professionalism.
Those of you who are continuing to travel on our services will realise that we have seen a huge decline in passenger numbers – around 90% in most areas. In light of this and working in consultation with local authorities, we are focusing our efforts on maintaining those services which are fundamental to those who need to access hospitals and other NHS sites and shopping centres and their workplaces.
We have been listening to your feedback on our timetables and where we identify sufficient need, we have been making adjustments. In some areas we are running bespoke shuttle services for the NHS. If you want to talk to us about a service that as a key worker you need, or you are concerned about social distancing due to the numbers travelling on a particular service, do contact us via our website www.firstgroup.com/coronavirus.
Wellbeing of customers and colleagues
We have acted swiftly to respond to Government advice to protect the health, safety and wellbeing of our passengers and colleagues. This includes a more intensive cleaning regime on our vehicles and in our depots and running additional buses to avoid overcrowding at any particular time on a route. Our drivers are equipped with gloves and hand sanitisers and by far the majority of our buses have protective screens.
We do however ask that all customers who have bank cards, use contactless to pay for their fare. Where customers don’t have such a card, we do urge that you pay with the exact fare.
Keeping you informed and updated
We are working hard to ensure that our websites, social media platforms and contact centre colleagues have had access to the latest information. For the most up-to-date service information, travel advice and information about coronavirus, please refer to our website. Latest timetable information is available on our app. Whilst we have been making rapid changes to our schedules, real time information systems have not always been able to keep up to date. We expect this issue to be cleared very shortly as our timetables are now confirmed for the coming weeks.
Our telephone customer service remains open if you do need to talk to us, but operating hours will be changing on April 20th. We will be open from 9am-5pm Monday to Friday. Outside of these hours you can contact us via the contact form on our website and our team will also be monitoring Twitter at the weekends between 9am and 5pm and on weekdays between 7am and 7pm.
We look forward to increasing the timetables we offer as soon as the Government advises us that it’s sensible to do so.