Bus Blues

I can no longer afford to own a car. It’s been many years that I have not driven one. So I let the driving to my chauffeur, the bus driver.

The beauty of having someone to drive you around town is you can do anything; enjoy the view, read magazine, play games, talk on the phone or doze off. This is without worry of getting a fine or worst, waking up in A&E. It is still better than not to wake up at all, though!

Public transport saves you time and money on parking fees and reduces the occurrence of forehead-crease inducing stress of finding one.

Thanks to Google maps and data providers for making it easier to find which bus to take and the connections to get to your destination. Everywhere is just a tap away.

I see people doing just that. They do it whilst at the bus station, inside the bus and they’re tapping away whilst on the move. Dangerous, when their concentration is all but the perilous movements around them. I did exactly like that, gathering near misses and ‘I’m sorries.’

I decided to end this up and adopt a better way of doing things. Waking the phone, keying the passcode, finding the way on the internet takes time and needs total concentration.

Recording this on the phone using screenshot is a quick way of accessing the same information and easy way of reassuring the progress of the journey.

With this technique, I still need to wake up the phone, key in the passcode and browse through my screenshots. So I did an ‘old school’ technique.

I use Google maps to get the details of my destination. To tailor the data I need, I set the search to just include the bus, which is cheaper than most mode of transport. 

On default, it shows all of the available types of transport. Just tap on the service to exclude it from the search.

I choose ‘arrive by’ in the query which I find it a better option.

With a sticky note, I wrote down the relevant information like station name, bus number and time of arrival from the station and to the connecting station. I included the stop IDs as well until the final destination is reached.

Then I stick it at the back of my phone inside the protective transparent cover. 

So every time I need to review my destination, I just flip it around to see my progress. 

Old school can look cool when you’re just flipping your phone to see your route whilst others are still waking up their phones, keying their passcodes, checking their photos or going to the internet to find the route information.