Great to 'signal your bus' if you can see and read the destination sign. But sometimes for various reasons you can't. Three different bus routes go up Stuart St and it's not uncommon for buses to be scheduled to leave The Octagon at the same time or within minutes of each other. But they certainly don't always come up the hill in the order they are scheduled. So you can't figure out which route is coming next by departure time - one bus might be late and the other early. Outside Otago Boys High, the bus drivers coming up the hill move into the right hand lane at the traffic lights before the bus stop if they can - too far away for me to read some of the destination signs. (The 37 bus has BIG numbers which I can see - the Helensburgh and Halfway Bush bus not so much.) So I just signal all of them so they will go into the left lane nearer the stop where I can read the sign. But tough luck if the bus I want is following immediately behind. It will usually just pass the stopped bus. I suppose the driver assumes I am boarding that one, or maybe can't even see me because I'm obscured by the first bus. If two people were waiting at this stop and wanting different routes, it's extremely likely that one of them would miss the bus if two buses came at the same time - because the second bus wouldn't stop.
ORC says there's nothing they can do about it. They suggested that maybe I could board the wrong bus and the driver could RT the right bus so I could transfer at a stop ahead.But no guarantees there.
I wondered if other people have this problem. Maybe it could be solved if bus drivers were told not to follow immediately behind another bus. This would mean the following occasionally waiting at a stop a few seconds longer so that the preceding bus was more than a couple of bus lengths away. Then the first bus wouldn't obscure the second bus from intending passengers.
I've been swimming at the Moana Pool for about 15 years and my chances of getting a Helensburgh bus up the hill from the bus stop at the intersection by the pool are so small that I generally walk down to The Octagon. This is very frustrating, particularly as I am usually missing off-peak buses which are travelling up the hill empty! I think I will have to get some kind of flag with 51 written on it and signal the bus drivers with that. Blue for Route 51. Or even a large blue handkerchief. ( Route 50/51 is colour-coded blue in the timetable.) Maybe this really is a viable remedy for people with visual disability and the ORC could advise the bus drivers accordingly.