Hello everyone.
Last year (in 2012), I was on my way from Ipswich to Felixstowe (both in Suffolk) on a local bus service. That afternoon, the bus was making its way to the A14 dual carriageway road as normal (for the time). A few minutes after joining the A14, there was an unexpected, huge line of traffic ahead. The traffic was absolutely jammed solid at times. Every passenger, and the bus driver, were all confused, yet I didn't panic.
I used a travel app on my mobile phone to find out exactly what was going on, and also where. My phone told me that there had been a nasty accident involving an articulated lorry and a car, just after the exit slip road the bus was supposed to get off at. My fellow passengers assumed that an accident-damaged car they saw at the preceding road junction caused all that traffic, but they were wrong. I told my fellow passengers exactly what hapened, then I told the bus driver, then I alerted him the second the traffic started moving.
As the bus got closer to the exit slip road, it turned out that I was absolutely right all along. My fellow passengers feared that the slip road would be closed, but it wasn't. The bus proceeded onward to a part of Felixstowe known as Old Felixstowe, albeit about 50 minutes late. If I had not told the driver exactly what I did tell him, all the Felixstowe buses (there are currently 3 different services going to different parts of Felixstowe) would have been delayed even further. I have probably prevented more severe delays and cancellations from occurring than there would have been at the time.
This story goes to show how well equipped I am for virtually anything on my public transport journeys. I always use my mobile phone to be informed of the latest travel situation before and/or during the journey itself. However, as I currently travel by train, if it broke down, the phone signal may be too weak, and I wouldn't be able to find out what's going on. The conductor or driver would keep me informed, but some train types can be noisy, and any announcements tend to be virtually impossible to hear clearly. On the London Underground, there is almost no mobile phone signal at all in places, and their trains can be rather noisy in the tunnels.
I would love to hear any public transport breakdown stories that you may have.
