SEAN O’NEIL: Thanks to Stagecoach the biggest hurdle we faced on dream holiday was getting out of Perth

‘The best-laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men gang aft agley’, as the celebrated bard once wrote in To a Mouse.

If Rabbie Burns were to pen his famous poem now it would likely be called To a Bus Company.

Stagecoach’s plans often seem to go awry, sending their passengers’ with it.

Forty-eight cancellations across Tayside and Fife on Monday is a shocking return and the bus company’s excuse of staff sickness and bad weather doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

Almost half of the services were pulled due to technical issues, vehicle faults or breakdowns.

Those are problems which fall squarely on the shoulders of Stagecoach, they can’t blame roadworks or the winter for their own vehicles falling apart.

And it’s a pattern that passengers will be all too familiar with in recent years.

Our holiday nearly finished in Perth

The bus company’s ongoing problems with timetable and schedule nearly cost me a holiday last month.

I was lucky enough to travel across a few countries in South America for two and a half weeks in December.

It was a once-in-a-lifetime trip that my wife and I spent the last 12 months saving and planning for.

We gathered all the necessary details for journeying through unknown lands.

In retrospect, we should have been focusing on how to get out of Perth.

As you can probably imagine, one of the main things we looked up in advance was travel, the getting from one place to another.

The first piece of that puzzle was the short trip to Broxden Park and Ride.

It should have been the easiest bit.

Unfortunately, we were relying on Stagecoach to take us there.

A five minute delay became 10… and so on

On a cold and frosty morning we stood with our bags and suitcase at a bus stop on Glasgow Road.

A quick glance online told us the service was delayed by five minutes.

Still, plenty of time.

But five soon became 10 and then 10 changed to 15.

A worried glance was exchanged, this could be a problem.

Eventually the existence of the bus just vanished from their live updates page completely.

To say a mild panic set in would be an understatement. We had to make our connecting ride to the airport.

And so we ran, quite literally.

Hauling suitcase and bags up Glasgow Road at a pace as close to a sprint as I’m still able to manage.

The bus hurtled past us en route of course, why wouldn’t it?

Stagecoach’s own website may have said it no longer existed, but here it was – more than 20 minutes late – racing past our outstretched hands.

We made our connecting bus with about 30 seconds to spare and caught our breath again somewhere near the border of Fife.

Buses must be treated as lifeline services

As our trip came to an end we laughed at how the biggest hurdle we had faced in 2.5 weeks was getting out of our own town.

The second biggest was Heathrow.

But it’s not really a laughing matter overall.

Our experience is just one small example of how continued delays and cancellations affect people who rely on these essential services.

Folk who use them for work, for school, for GP and hospital appointments.

They are a lifeline for so many communities and they need to be treated as such.

It was close to freezing the morning our bus never showed, elderly passengers waiting, watching their breath in the air.

It cannot continue.

Private companies owned by German banks

A shake-up of how buses are operated across Tayside and Fife is badly needed.

Our councils don’t have the money to keep subsiding private companies and neither does the government.

In the case of Stagecoach, that would be taxpayer money – our money – going into the pockets of DWS shareholders, a German company owned by Deutsche Bank.

Under the current system it would be money down the drain.

There doesn’t appear to be enough regulation to ensure that these private operators run what most would consider a fit and proper service.

We need to explore models that put power back in the hands of the people, where companies can be held accountable for poor service.

Where they fear a financial penalty or punishment.

Ideas like franchising need to be explored with haste in Tayside and Fife.

It’s a model that appears to be working in Manchester and is under consideration in Strathclyde.

Because we need a change.

For a decent service.

For promis’d joy!