The chairman of Scotland’s largest transport company has urged bosses to “put themselves in the shoes of customers” in order to tackle its shortcomings.
Wolfhart Hauser, who heads the board at Aberdeen-based FirstGroup, said yesterday the state of a bus he was on in the Granite City left him worried for his health.
“The suspension was so broken … I was afraid I would hurt my back,” he told investors at the bus and train giant’s latest annual general meeting.
“Horrible” bus stations around the UK made the public transport experience unpleasant for too many passengers Mr Hauser said.
He added: “The board is always telling the management to listen more to our customers. Managers never buy train tickets, or bus tickets.
“We really have to bring everybody in the company … to put themselves in the shoes of customers and understand what it is that the customer is really experiencing.”
But Mr Hauser also highlighted the vast sums FirstGroup spends every year on new buses and said the company, which notched up sales of more than £5.2billion during the year to March 31, was making major inroads into upgrading its fleet.
Speaking after the meeting, he described his recent of public transport in FirstGroup’s home city.
He flew into Europe’s energy capital on Sunday evening, finding that his best bet for getting to the Norwood Hall Hotel quickly at that time of night was in a taxi.
After checking out the AGM venue – Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre – next day he took a Stagecoach bus into the city centre.
He said he then had difficulty finding out where he should go to catch a First bus back to his hotel, and when he boarded the vehicle he discovered his Stagecoach ticket was not valid.
FirstGroup’s chairman said he was – like many other visitors to the city – baffled by the zonal fare system and to cap everything he did not have the correct change – so overpaid by 40p.
Too many confused passengers like him were adding to bus boarding times – and, ultimately, traffic congestion, he said.
FirstGroup was making progress on many fronts, including mobile phone apps, multi-ticketing and smart cards, he added, before again stressing the need for transport bosses to “push harder” in improving services.
Chief executive Tim O’Toole said the company’s senior management was always mindful of the need to “do more for the customer”, adding: “We have to be constantly challenging ourselves.”
The firm has poured £455million into upgrading its bus fleet over the past six years, while it also continues to invest heavily in digital technology aimed at helping customers to buy tickets and find information about services much more simply and reliably.
