Bus route

I had a weird encounter today. 

I was travelling in a bus (that is not the weird encounter). I boarded the bus. I took the bus ticket.  After that I asked the bus conductor "What is the return route for this bus?". I asked this question because I had travelled in this bus earlier. At that time while returning, the route of the bus was different. I only wanted to know that which route the bus takes while returning.

The bus conductor got confused. He told me that this bus is going to the bus depot.

To that I said "yes, I am aware that this bus is going to the bus depot. I want to know the return route of this bus."

He was still confused. He said "The bus will take the same route."

I said "no, that is not the case. I had taken this bus earlier and it takes a different route while returning. I want to know which route is that."

To which he told me that this is bus number 88. So it takes the route for the bus number 88. This was a pretty obvious answer.

Now, this conversation was unnecessarily getting lengthy. I decided to cut the chase and I explained, "I had taken this bus once before. While returning, it took a different route. So I want to know what is the return route of this bus so that I can decide whether I should take this bus from the depot while returning."

The bus conductor either was not able to understand my question or maybe he did not know the answer to this question. He was beating around the bush. He was still going on and on saying that this bus goes to the depot and it starts from the depot.

Towards the end, I decided to give up. I said thank you, even though my question was unanswered. I did not ask him any further questions.

After this encounter, I thought of certain possibilities why it happened. 

1. The bus conductor did not understand my question.

2. He did not hear my question. (This is possible because I am a soft-spoken person. Many times people could not hear me talking.)

3. He was new on the job. He did not yet know the route it takes.

4. He has already had enough and he has lost all his patience. (This again is unlikely because this conversation happened at 11 o'clock in the morning.)

5. He already was bored and was not indulging in sharing information.

6. He genuinely did not know, but he wanted to pretend as if he knows.

Being a public servant, I believe that it is his duty to answer the questions which are related to his job. The question that I asked was very relevant to his active work. I expected him to respond to my question. Yet, I did not receive an appropriate response from the bus conductor. 

I am a young person. Even if I do not receive a response from a bus conductor, I can always rely on the internet. But my concern is towards the elderly population. This population does not know how to use the internet. They may not be technologically savvy. If such people board the bus and ask these type of questions, how the staff is going to assist them? Is our society equipped enough to handle the concerns of young generation as well as the elderly generation? 

This continues to be a haunting question.