Anyone know why all-door boarding hasn’t been implemented outside TfB buses yet? I hear some claims it’s due to concerns about fare evasion, but IMO, drivers ought not to care about that anyway.
I’m on a 545 this morning, which is running about 14 minutes late, and maybe it wouldn’t be as late with all-door boarding; dwell times have been quite long at some stops due to the number of people boarding.
People not using the right-hand validator doesn’t help, either; maybe TL needs to raise awareness that this exists. Everyone wants to use the one next to the driver.
Clarks are like this too - as far as I’m aware, all their buses ARE all door boarding capable (the older models in the fleet operated this way during the pandemic, and recent rear door readers looks to be capable of accepting tap ons), but it’s a corporate decision by Clarks not to do so. Clarks buses have “No Entry” stickers on their doors facing the outside of the rear doors, and “We only allow front door boarding on our buses” adverts on the PID screens of buses with them.
This doesn’t stop people in predominantly TfB-serviced areas from getting on at the back like on TfB services, leading to doors being closed on passengers and, in the worst case, a door closing on a person with a satchel bag in such a way that he ended up on the bus, but the bag hanging across his chest being caught outside the bus (passenger shouts prevented the bus leaving and the driver subsequently opening the door on this occasion).
Interesting, I saw a 555 driver open the rear doors for boarding at Loganholme on Saturday. I expect maybe it was due to the huge load of people going to the Rugby league at Suncorp, most of whom would’ve had travel with their match ticket, and therefore not needed to touch on.
I’ve even had a 560 driver not let me exit through the rear door, because he was worried about fare evaders boarding at that stop (it was at Loganlea station during after-school time, lots of students).
I wish individual drivers wouldn’t make up policy on the run.
I actually had something like this happen on an inbound run last week. I think it was a 569 (to be fair it could have been a 566 or 571 as well) that was running late. To get everyone on quickly, he threw open all the doors and from the front door called for everyone to pile in quickly via both doors.
All door boarding can be a hindrance sometimes too. If you have a narrow rear door (as many of the older TfB ones do), it can slow you down, especially when everyone wants to board through the rear. If passengers spread out as well as adapting to the situation (e.g. if a lot of people are disembarking at the rear, board at the front), then it can work quite well. I think it should be standard in the CBD and at interchanges and busway stations at least.
Rear door boarding also makes it harder for the driver to monitor who is getting on too. In my experience, people who cause major problems (e.g. vaping, chroming) almost never pay. There is a tension between drivers and the powers that be over fare evasion. From a drivers perspective, refusing fare evaders can act a little like a dress code at a night club. It’s a reason to stop potential problem patrons from getting in the door. The lack of enforcement over fares has also bred a culture of “rules are more like suggestions”. I have noticed since covid that overall behaviour of passengers has declined. Anti-social behaviour like people using their phones on loud speaker is now a weekly occurrence.
This is presumably not something covered by the service contracts.
Things like this make me want to throw my hands up in the air and advocate for bringing everything in SEQ under the State Government directly. A passenger shouldn’t have to know, or care, who employs the bus drivers on their route, what industrial arrangements they have with their employer and the like. A bus should be a bus no matter where it is in Queensland and people shouldn’t have to be made to guess how things work because they’ve crossed some imaginary line.
