Record rainfall has been blamed for an increase in complaints concerning bus services. The Transport Advisory Committee yesterday reported it had received 4,198 complaints about franchised services for 1997-98, a 41 per cent increase on the previous year. Various complaints about service were responsible for 41.5 per cent, which amounted to 10,107 cases in 1997-98. 'It is probably due to the weather - rainy weather causing congestion,' committee chairman Dr Cheng Hon-kwan said. 'People might not be that patient waiting, which leads to a lot of complaints.' The commission believes with a record annual rainfall of 3,343 millimetres last year, service reliability was undermined because of poor road conditions which led to delays. The complaints, mainly about adequacy and standard of service, were also partly due to the introduction of 40 new routes during the year compared with only 17 the previous year, Dr Cheng said. Of the three major bus franchises, Citybus experienced the largest rise in complaints, from 311 cases in 1996-97 to 595 cases in 1997-98.
