A Perth bus passenger has criticised Scottish Citylink for offering a delayed service without heating after imposing a significant hike in the cost of his ticket.
Ken Fraser said he was forced to travel on a late and freezing bus on his morning commute to Glasgow even after paying over 14% more than last year.
The fed-up commuter was travelling on the 6.45am M11 service from Perth’s Broxden park.
Mr Fraser said: “The bus was delayed by 55 minutes. It had originally started its journey in Aberdeen and was travelling all the way to London.
“When we finally boarded the coach, the driver advised all passengers that the bus he was driving was the third vehicle issued to him that morning. The other two vehicles had faults.
“He made a further apology due to this coach having no heating.
“It was absolutely freezing on this coach. Goodness knows how the passengers who boarded in Aberdeen felt by the time they reached Glasgow and I pity those waiting to board the coach at Glasgow bound for destinations in the south, possibly all the way to London.”
Mr Fraser said the cost of his Apex day return ticket has risen from £6.96 during 2012/13 to £7.12 in 2013/14 and to £8.16 in 2014/15.
He added: “The incident gives me, as a regular commuter on the Glasgow service, additional concern that the public service vehicles in use by this company are poorly maintained despite hikes in fare costs.”
Mr Fraser said that the ticket price rise “was despite claims of an operative error on fare structures and an immediate reinstatement of the original fare costs for the Edinburgh route.”
He added: “This has yet to happen on the Glasgow route.
“For some time now, the cost per mile is different on both routes. Why should this be? Surely the running cost per mile is the same, irrespective of the destination.”
A spokeswoman for Scottish Citylink apologised for the delayed service “which was caused by technical problems at the beginning of the journey” and went on: “The coach that operated the journey to Glasgow did have heating on but it was not heating the vehicle as effectively as we would expect and, for that reason, the coach was replaced with another vehicle for the remainder of its journey to London.
“Fares on our services rose by an average of 3% cent in January as a result of increased operating costs.
“Until this year, return tickets for this particular journey were charged at the same price as a single ticket we have now made a change to determine a price differential between single tickets and return tickets, which is standard on all forms of transport.”