Bad Way to Know People’s Needs (KPN)

Last Sunday night I had a horrible experience with KPN bus service. GG's friend (girl) was supposed to leave on that night in KPN bus to her hometown from Bangalore. She had booked a Sleeper bus that was supposed to leave at 11 p.m. She had reached the place at 10 p.m. itself.
The other buses came and went but her bus never came. Finally at 12.30 a.m. the KPN guys had told that the bus has met with an accident and they don’t have spare buses. They just offered to refund the money. They told the stranded passengers to find their own way out. When GG’s friend had asked the KPN guy how could they be so irresponsible, that guy responded rudely, “We are like this only”.
The passengers got agitated and fought with the KPN guys. At one point one of the passengers who is a lawyer went on to slap the KPN guy. Then the KPN guys took steel rod and the situation seemed very precarious.
GG’s friend panicked and called GG and I went to that spot at 1.30. By the time I went Police had reached. One of the passengers called up the Police and the Police intervened at the right time.
The Police, however, were only able to stop any violence from happening. The KPN manager came at around 1.30. He said that since it’s Sunday they didn’t have any spare buses. He told that he has called up Vellore KPN guys and they are sending a bus. That bus will come only by 4 a.m. The Police couldn’t help much when the manager told like this.
The Police told the passengers to take a call. After all the drama most of the passengers didn’t want to stay anymore in that office that didn’t even have a toilet. Almost all passengers got just the refund of the ticket cost and left.
The sheer irresponsibility of the KPN guys was shocking. How can they keep the passengers in waiting at late night when they knew their bus had met with an accident? How can they be so rude to their passengers without whom they can’t run their business?
KPN refunded just the ticket cost without even the tax amount. Compare this with an airline; in Europe if your flight gets postponed by a day the airlines have to give each passenger 500 Euros per day as compensation.
It’s more appalling to know that a well-established bus service like KPN lacks even spare buses. How do these guys operate such a mammoth bus service when they don’t even have a spare bus?
It was a sorry sight to see women among the passengers. They were horrified after seeing all the verbal and physical fight. By the time we collected the refund and left the place it was 2 a.m. Leaving the passengers helpless in the night was a terrible thing.
The most ironical thing was KPN stands for Knowing People’s Needs. If this were their way to know people’s needs they have a long way to go indeed.