Great Western Coffee Shop

There's been several cases recently of new trains being delayed while the makers struggle to get the software to work. And then there's bugs ...

There's been a burst of stuff in the media in France this week, including TV news, about bed bugs being found on trains. (And without tickets, I suspect!) It became news because video of some in a Ouigo was posted and spread on social media, but a second recent case is more interesting. This was a regional train to Lille, where someone pointed the punaises out to the controlleur on board. He evacuated that carriage, and made a PA announcement to the train. At the next station some passengers got off who didn't need to, and those who got on heard another PA announcement on the subject (to explain the closed carriage, no doubt).

The story has been spreading, with more sightings (no doubt due to a lot more people looking), and a minister calling operators to a meeting. SNCF say their standard response is to ask passenger in that coach if they want to move to another, and they also said something about how they do debugging, both reactive and routine. While several sighting have been on buses, as well as on trains, RATP are saying they have no such problem - including on a Métro train where they were reported. (More details from Euronews. (https://www.euronews.com/travel/2023/09/29/trains-and-cinemas-in-france-reportedly-infested-with-bedbugs-as-paris-officials-urge-acti))

Looking for similar news here, I can only find a little outburst in 2018. That was started by Rentokil saying they'd been called out to bed bug infestations more than before, which may not count as sound statistics. But how common, or commonplace, is this in trains, buses, etc. here? In France public awareness was first boosted by some bugs found in cinemas last week, which primed people to spot them. I suspect it's not at all rare, and I don't think the number of media reports can be taken as reliable evidence prevalence. Apparently the best way to find where they are hiding is to use trained dogs.