Public Transport Social Experiment – Busdriver Courtesy

This is the first of hopefully a few public transport social experiments I aim to undertake to get an insight into just how good and bad public transport is here in Australia, more precisely Brisbane, Queensland.

I had the privilege of being on a bus where the driver was cheery, talkative and very friendly to everyone on the bus. He would tell everyone who departed the bus to have a good evening, good night and to take care. This got me thinking.

I started writing down on my iPod just how many people responded with something equally nice as the bus driver wished them a good evening. I was honestly surprised of the results, kind of shocked actually.

It’s to be noted I didn’t start writing down results until the bus was half way into it’s journey, so this is a rough approximation.

Until my stop, 17 people hoped off the bus and I recorded whether they said something to the bus driver equally nice or just didn’t say anything.

Person #1 – Responded
Person #2 – Didn’t respond
Person #3 – Didn’t respond
Person #4 – Didn’t respond
Person #5 – Didn’t respond
Person #6 – Didn’t respond
Person #7 – Responded
Person #8 – Didn’t respond
Person #9 – Didn’t respond
Person #10 – Didn’t respond
Person #11 – Didn’t respond
Person #12 – Responded
Person #13 – Didn’t respond
Person #14 – Responded
Person #15 – Responded
Person #16 – Responded
Person #17 – Responded

Only 7 people actually bothered responding to the bus drivers courtesy out of 17 people! Which is pretty bad. How hard is it to say thank you to the bus driver when you’re leaving anyway? It’s not.

I think courtesy and appreciation is starting to dissipate from society. Stay tuned for another Public Transport Social Experiment sometime shortly.

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