Five Challenges. Or Two

The one thing that puts me off travelling atop a double deck on a Saturday is the noise from 14-15 year olds, plus the music on their phones & MP3s. Perhaps I’m getting old but I find their over exuberance slightly intimidating. It’s not every bus but if you happen upon the wrong one at the wrong time, thoughtless young people can make life miserable just because they’re off the leash. They aren’t necessarily threatening, just a little boisterous. It doesn’t help that you have your back to them.

Not surprisingly, I’m not the only one that feels that way. First Yorkshire has begun a campaign to clean up some of the more unpleasant aspects associated with bus travel, the type of things than intimidate regular passengers and put off casuals. First’s passengers have identified five behaviours that put passengers off. There’s no surprise: littering, music, drinking, eating and feet on the seats.

First believes its five quirky, comedy characters such as Mr Chips and Litter Lads that each match a repellent behaviour offer a unique and different approach to solving these perennial problems. Why not? A straightforward approach from authority figures such as drivers, inspectors or supervisors doesn’t seem to work. The last time I asked an 18 year old to put his feet on the floor and not on the squab took two attempts, a begrudging acceptance and I knew as soon as my back was turned up they’d go. Had I been an inspector in uniform, I would’ve probably gotten nowhere. Psychologists tell us that we must engage with young people in different and less threatening ways and that they don’t relate to let alone understand conventional messages.

I would challenge First to publish the results of its campaign. If successful, we could all learn from it.

I would also suggest that in tackling a certain segment of the market, there comes a point when younger passengers still will automatically move up to fill the slot vacated by those who leave or who mature. So the further challenge to First is to keep coming up with something innovative that can continue to have an effect throughout a passenger’s life cycle. Not that littering or drinking on board is exclusively down to young people.