I was travelling from Chennai to Palakkad on January 26, 2012 by a bus operated by K.P.N travels. The bus started at around 7.40 pm from Omni Bus stand, Koyambedu, Chennai and was supposed to reach Palakkad by 5.15 am.
We were woken up at around 2 am, 27th January and were asked to get down from the bus, because this bus had to return to Chennai. They said the second bus is waiting and is the same comfort level as the one we were in-none of us were informed of this at the start of the journey. All the passengers in the bus, which included many ladies and children, got down form the bus to discover that there was no bus waiting. We were made to wait there, in an unknown place, in the middle of nowhere, for around 30 minutes before the new bus arrived.
We finally got into the new bus, and the luggage was transferred from the previous bus to this one. In total this whole process wasted around 1.5 to 2 hours of travel time. Finally the bus got going, but unfortunately broke down in about 5 minutes. While trying to repair it, we tried to call K.P.N offices in Chennai, Coimbatore and Salem. Most of the calls went unanswered, and when we were fortunate enough to get our calls answered, the person had no idea how to deal with bus breaking down. So around 1-1.5 hours wasted there again. And someone turned up and temporarily fixed it. But the breakdown kept happening and K.P.N. never felt responsible to replace the bus, in spite of maintaining such a huge fleet of buses.
Finally at 6 am, when the bus could not be repaired any more times, the bus staff told us that they had no idea what was in store for us. That is when I decide to leave the bus and take Govt buses. So I took a Govt bus from that place (some 30 km from Coimbatore ) to Coimbatore and a bus from there to Palakkad. There were a lot of passengers in the bus to Ernakulam, who could not do that as well. There was one gentleman who had an interview at Ernakulam-I am sure he had to miss that interview due the K.P.N mess up.
So, instead of reaching Palakkad by 5.30 am, I reached by 10.30 am, that too by Govt buses. I would like to know what legal action could be taken against K.P.N.

• changing buses unannounced, thus wasting 1.5 to 2 hours and making all passengers wait in the middle of nowhere
• not feeling responsbiel for repairing or replacing buses when they break down, so that these private travel agencies feel accountable to the passengers, and do not take them for granted.