AT a time when the Government is urging greater use of public transport, it's perfectly correct that one of Bolton's major bus operators should be financially penalised and banned for peristent unreliability.

It cost Stagecoach Ribble around £120,000 and a ban from operating any additonal services until North-west Traffic Commissioners feel they have "demonstrably improved".

The action followed a series of public inquiries involving 16 operators, large and small, in the Greater Manchester and Merseyside areas.

Two other operators, First Manchester and Stagecoach Manchester, escaped with warnings and both were told to improve.

Stagecoach Ribble's vehicles were monitored at Bolton and Bury bus stations where one bus in eight either failed to appear or was more than six minutes late.

Blamed

The company blamed roadworks, traffic, staff absenteeism and vehicle breakdowns for problems. This didn't wash with the Traffic Commissioners, and it won't wash with the rest of us either.

The travelling public has a right to expect services which state that they will arrive at a certain time to arrive at least around then. People have to run their lives around timed public transport to get to work, school and appointments, and it is perfectly reasonable to expect that bus schedules revolve around schedules similarly.

In real life, there are always going to be daily variables. Like the rest of us, bus operators know this and should be able to make enough allowances to still maintain a reasonably efficient bus service.

When such firms let down members of the public consistently, knuckles need to be rapped. We applaud the Traffic Commissioners approach and hope that this short, sharp lesson will be learned, and acted upon in the future.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.