Over months observing the new ‘Touch on / off’ system, it has become apparent that bus drivers want to take consumers for a ride.

These drivers are not being informative with customers relating to direction of travel, nor allowing some access to system in ‘Touching off’ prior to exit, in-turn costing travellers $5.00 for that trip instead.

On one account coming back from Seaworld Southport, arriving in Surfers Paradise on Bus 751 at around 15:40est, the bus driver did not give people time to exit the bus correctly prior to accepting new travellers on.

What happen was in serving new travellers getting on he had locked-out the ‘Touch off’ system. People tried to gain his attention, but did not respond and on this occasion there were Seaworld and half a dozen Muslim travellers on holiday staying at a hotel located nearby.

Being new to such systems like most travellers they could not work-out why they could not ‘Touch off’, I asked them to wait, but as the bus driver did not respond nor reactivate touch system 8+ people ended up walking off the bus rear exit without ‘Touching off’, mostly Muslims.

I on the other hand went to the front of the bus and had ago at the driver, telling him to reactivate the system, so people can ‘Touch off’ including my-self.

This is not the first time, over a two week period I too have been ripped by the system, below is one of those instances where I was misguided in direction of travel instead of costing $3.11 max such errors costed $10.00 in total for the experience.

06-Jul-11 04:53:54 PM Touch on Seaworld [54048] -5.00
06-Jul-11 05:25:05 PM Touch off Australia Fair [23115]
06-Jul-11 05:25:05 PM Cancel touch on Australia Fair [23115]
06-Jul-11 05:47:34 PM Touch on Markwell Avenue [50005]
06-Jul-11 05:47:34 PM Touch off Markwell Avenue [50005] -5.00

I got on the bus asking if he was going to pass through Surfers, answer was “Yes”, I ‘Touched on’ and ended up getting off the bus one stop after Australia Fair, after having ago at bus driver, for not giving right information of direction, upset I did not ‘Touch off’ with this bus, as I have to now to catch another bus in the other direction.

The driver did not indicate as a reminder to ‘Touch off’ he just closed doors quickly and drove off before such thought came to mind. I walked back to Australia Fair, remembering I have not ‘Touched off’ from the other bus ‘Touched off’ now on new bus, prior to ‘Re-touching on’ after next time minute on screen had rolled over again, headed to Surfers.

I ‘Touched off’ again at Surfers Paradise destination were I wanted to go originally, both exchanges coming home ended up costing me $5.00 each totalling $10.00.

On another instance I wanted to add credit to my card, but rather than applying the three step method 1. Add 2. Top-up 3. Touch on, the driver went 1. Touch on 2. Add 3. Touch off, stating the amount in minus -$5.00 I am viewing, was an “estimate of the trip only”.

An estimate of my trip you say? How does the system know how much my trip will cost, $5.00 is the maximum amount of a day trip, not my trip cost.
I can clearly see that I have not only ‘Touched on’ but also ‘Touched off’ within the one process, making sure that he gets $5.00 out of me for the experience.

What else you might say goes on in travelling our bus services? Would you believe that bus drivers have confiscated wallets off people, withholding customer’s property without approval!

I witnessed this on a trip home only last week, being it is ‘illegal’ to withhold any goods of a customer’s, other than to look after on approval of customer.

This bus driver had not only taken a customer’s wallet, but also hesitated in handing it back, when customer was departing the bus; sure the customer was on holiday, but there is no excuse being in possession of goods not belonging to you.

It’s is obvious that such extortion is going on and a continual practise; an audit enquiry should take place on All bus drivers individually for misconduct for period of last 3-6 months including holidays just passed.

How do you audit bus drivers you might say? Well this is very easy with the introduction of ‘GO CARDS’ we take a print of their travels and examine for $5.00 trips and then cross-checking such with continual patterns of the same driver, on top of this we examine time lapses all best done via a human audit analyst able to take in account human behaviour.

‘Minister of Transport’ would no dealt make a statement on behalf of TransLink that travellers are just forgetting to ‘Touch off’, but as you can see that on a larger scale, this not to be true.

Recently signs on 7th of July were added in buses, reminding people to ‘Touch off’, this is also the responsibility of the driver to acknowledge people getting off without ‘Touching off’ (good customer service).

On my final note on ‘Health and Safety’, All Buses are in breach of the safety with the angle and location of touch screens, being that they are not facing in an upward angle enough for plain sight, meaning allot of people have to crouch or bend-over to see the screen, not to mention they are located near entrances to pavements, putting people at a safety risk of injury.

Say if there was standing room only or if another customer was to walk into them whilst in such a precarious positions trying to view screen what could happen?

To be fare most bus drivers are courteous and do deliver on good customer service, those bad apples in the barrel thinking they are making the business and state extra money via extorting people are bringing the honest drivers down in the public’s eyes with lack of trust.


Brett J Hutton