31/05/23 CT and bus

Had a phone call yesterday offering me a cancellation appointment (another!) for a CT scan at Broomfield mid-day today.

We thought moving to within a short walk to the bus station and regular buses to the hospital would make life easier….

Had an appointment at Broomfield Hospital. Checked the options out on Google Maps and on the First Bus app. Experience of the previous two times told me the bus supposed to arrive outside The Ship never does (or not on time, anyway) so went straight to the bus station for the C1 shuttle, due to leave 11:48 and arrive at the Hospital 12:07. The digital board said 11 mins, so I took a walk around the station and by the time I got back it was down to 4 mins. It stayed on 4 mins for 5 mins, then went down to 3 mins and eventually 2 mins, after which it went back to 4. No hint of anything other than light traffic. Eventually it changed to “Due” for a while and then disappeared altogether in favour of a couple of other buses in 17 mins and 60 mins time. Then back to 4 mins and then – without any further change, the bus appeared at 12:13, 6 minutes after it was supposed to arrive at the hospital…
The information on the app was equally disconnected from reality as far as I could see.
For the first of the two previous hospital trips, the bus never appeared at The Ship so I walked to the bus station and found another bus which eventually deposited me at the hospital after a long and intricate journey around the housing estates. That made me 15 minutes late for an MRI scan. Second time, no bus at The Ship again, nothing at the bus station, so no option but to spend £16 on a taxi. At least I was on time for another MRI. Today I was just in time for a CT, but only because I left home over an hour before a journey that shouldn’t have taken more than twenty-five minutes.

This is with all the supposed benefits of modern technology. GPS tracking, electronic boards at the bus stop, apps on your phone. Put them together and what should be a seamlessly integrated and perfectly efficient system falls into chaos. The old system with bus conductors, punched paper tickets, and printed timetables worked better. Further, this is no way to get people to abandon their cars for public transport. If I’d had my car keys in my pocket I’d have walked back home and got the car. As it was, the extra few minutes needed to go up to the flat and get the keys then go down again made me hang on that bit longer at the bus stop, and if that bus hadn’t finally appeared it would have been a taxi again. Could be temped to think that the whole thing is a conspiracy to get rid of the expensive bus services and drive everybody into the arms (or car doors) of the taxi operators…

 I wasn't in the machine more than a few minutes but by the time I got home - a much simpler journey - I had an email from "Alliance Medical" asking for feedback and for me to 'tell them about my experience' and 'would I recommend them to a friend'.... One of the many curses of modern life!