Sheffield transport: 'Sheffield buses are too often late and unreliable' says Star apprentice and bus passenger

I catch the bus in Sheffield several times a week, to and from work and also to other places. I can safely say that I can never feel comfortable on the bus that I will be on time for work, despite setting off plenty early enough.

From my local area, it should take 25-30 minutes to get to the city centre on a bus and thus I set off accordingly. The two buses I am able to catch should arrive at 8.10am and 8.15am respectively, however, they rarely arrive before 8.20am. The late arrival of my bus combined with rush hour traffic often results in me pushing it for time.

Another example of me being late to an event due to the unreliability of buses is when I was 10 minutes late for kick-off at Hillsborough due to my service 86 bus not showing at all and it being a 30-minute wait for another.

It is incredibly frustrating when you wait for a bus for 30 minutes and then two buses of the same service come together at near enough the same time.

Public transport is meant to make travelling cheaper and easier as well as taking cars off the road for the environment. However, in its current poor state, it is more reliable, cheaper and easier to travel by car and this is reflected in Sheffield’s increasingly busy roads.

The cleanliness of our buses are also letting the reputation of our public transport down. It feels as though the buses rarely get cleaned or sanitised after journeys making our buses look dirty and uncared for.

Even on occasions when I get on bus at 6.10am in the morning which is the first service of the day, there seems to always be some litter suggesting these buses are not cleaned ready for the next day.

Something needs to be done about the state of our bus service before more people stop trusting and using them completely. People need to be able to trust our bus service to get them where they need to on time, but in its current state, that is impossible.