Scottish Citylink has come under fire after high demand left many travellers complaining of being stranded in Edinburgh until the early hours of the morning on Monday.
According to passengers on Twitter, the Edinburgh to Glasgow service was in high demand Sunday evening with multiple buses bypassing busy stops without stopping because they were already at capacity.
“You should be completely ashamed of the way the queue for the Edinburgh to Glasgow bus was dealt with last night. Utter lack of communication and no regard for customer wellbeing,” one passenger tweeted.
Another passenger said he arrived at the Edinburgh bus station at 9.30pm and was greeted by a massive queue to Glasgow. He said there were no station announcements and the station was severely understaffed with only four people that he could count. He said the staff was not communicating with the crowd of tired passengers.
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“Families with children, single elderly women, in our part of the very slowly moving queue,” he added. “We got nearer to the gate and the queue behind us was even larger. We were standing outside, touching the bus at 12:10, when the driver, [told] us he had bookings to pick up enroute.”
The man said it was three buses later, at 1am, when he was finally able to board a bus.
Another passenger said she had pre-booked a particular bus service from Edinburgh to Glasgow. After waiting in a long queue for her delayed bus, she said the driver did not prioritise ticket holders first - and sold tickets as he went along.
“The service tonight was an absolute joke. I ended up standing as he misjudged how many seats he had. I had prepaid,” she said.
Another passenger said he waited on Princes Street for a delayed bus that drove straight past despite having booked a seat on it several days prior. “I’m now stranded in Edinburgh. Great service,” he tweeted on Sunday.
“There were at least six people waiting on the bus at Princes street when it sailed past. Not good. We got back home around 2 hours later than planned and the best part of £21 down. Hopefully Scottish Citylink does the right thing and covers those costs, I didn’t want to spend them, and wouldn’t have if the service had turned up.”
A Scottish Citylink representative on Twitter clarified that pre-booked seats on services should be kept aside for pre-booked passengers. “Seats should be kept aside for pre-booked passengers at the stops en route so it's unacceptable that wasn't the case last night. I'm really sorry,” the Citylink reply said.
A Scottish Citylink spokesperson said: “During the Edinburgh Festival, demand for our services is busier than normal. We have high-capacity vehicles on the 900 service between Edinburgh and Glasgow, which operate up to every 15 minutes and provide close to 80 seats per coach.
“While there are seats available for walk-up passengers, these are limited and like other transport modes we strongly encourage customers to plan ahead and pre-book in advance to guarantee a seat. This is particularly important when capacity on other parts of Scotland's transport network may be reduced.”
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