Shortage of buses to replace trains

[Goldfish62]

Without going round in circles, a lot of bus and coach drivers left the job because of the pandemic and any newcomers couldn't be tested. Add to that the driver CPC and the fact that supermarkets are crying out for home delivery drivers we are where we are.

Well, we are going round in circles. The shortage of bus drivers is nothing new. The shortage of rail replacement buses is.

 

[Edsmith]

Well, we are going round in circles. The shortage of bus drivers is nothing new. The shortage of rail replacement buses is.

Obviously rail replacement buses don't drive themselves.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 Apr 2023 ==

Agreed.



If only we had a more honest government, perhaps then I’d be more prepared to take the excuses being trotted out at face value .

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 Apr 2023 ==

They're facts not excuses and if you want to moan about the government there are more suitable threads.

 

[Goldfish62]

Obviously rail replacement buses don't drive themselves.

Yes, but the point I'm trying to make is that this time last year the driver shortage was even more acute, yet we didn't have mass cancellations of rail replacement services. It so obviously points to other factors in play, all of which have been highlighted.

 

[43066]

They're facts not excuses and if you want to moan about the government there are more suitable threads.

You don’t seem to have followed/responded to the points I (and others) have been making, so I’ll leave it there.

 

[Fleetmaster]

I know for a fact there are people out there who happily work three 12 hour shifts a week, Friday to Sunday, for minimum wage. Full time jobs, no more perks than a normal worker.

The attraction being they're getting almost a week's wage for three days work and it lets them do whatever it is in their life (childcare typically) that would have them be at home four days a week.

They're smart people too, machine operators and the like. And obviously it takes a decent work ethic to hold a job down with those hours.

If the railway is looking for a reliable source of drivers, train them up, and they'll happily do the job for a fraction what a casual via driver wants for ad hoc work. It would be so cheap, you could afford to pay them to sit at home for a few shifts if there's no work.

Obviously they would have to build up a fleet of standardized coaches strategically placed around the country, with a few drivers on split transport shifts, but if that's beyond Great British Railways, the country's gone.

The coaches get worked hard at weekends, maximum usage, with servicing and maybe a bit of extra work on the side during the week, if any drivers are available for overtime.

 

[Edsmith]

Yes, but the point I'm trying to make is that this time last year the driver shortage was even more acute, yet we didn't have mass cancellations of rail replacement services. It so obviously points to other factors in play, all of which have been highlighted.

I suspect the driver shortages are going to continue worsening as existing drivers retire and seemingly not many people are being attracted into the job.

 

[Deepgreen]

Obviously rail replacement buses don't drive themselves.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 5 Apr 2023 ==


They're facts not excuses and if you want to moan about the government there are more suitable threads.

Ironically the BBC has a story today about a driverless bus service starting in Scotland - perhaps a few humans will be freed up to drive RRBs!

 

[Edsmith]

Ironically the BBC has a story today about a driverless bus service starting in Scotland - perhaps a few humans will be freed up to drive RRBs!

They can't come soon enough, and perhaps they won't get lost like RRB drivers sometimes do?

 

[bunty0657]

Whereas because the railway now needs fully accessible vehicles, those budgets need to be increased, because any old junk from the back of the yard* will no longer do.

The railway does not need fully accessible vehicles for rail replacement to the exclusion of every non-accessible bus or coach.

Various short-term exemptions from the PSV Accessibility Regulations were issued by the government over the course of a number of years until 2022, at which point a medium-term exemption programme (with a tapered approach to compliance rates by bus and coach operators making use of it) was put in place by the Department for Transport lasting until 2026. Rail replacement is captured by that medium-term work and hence non-accessible buses and coaches that have been granted an exemption can be used on rail replacement.

That said, it is expected that train operating companies (or their agents in providing rail replacement) will exhaust the supply of accessible buses and coaches before utilising non-accessible examples. More easily done on a pre-planned job (maybe), but not easy at short notice.

The PSV Accessibility Regulations also do not apply to vehicles with less than either 21 or 19 seats (I can't remember offhand), and therefore minibuses below that capacity can be used as and how required.

For reference, the rail replacement provider I mentioned earlier was last year offering a premium of £20 for a day's use of a coach that complies with the Accessibility Regulations over one that does not.

 

[joncombe]

Ironically the BBC has a story today about a driverless bus service starting in Scotland - perhaps a few humans will be freed up to drive RRBs!

Did you read it? Because it said this driverless bus will have to have two members of staff in board. Doesn't sound like a cost saving as presumably at least one of those would have to be licensed to drive it if needed.

 

[Flange Squeal]

How about asking staff to jump on the RRB with the passengers or asking them to use their own cars, thus the taxis won't be overbooked or solely working the very lucrative job of ferrying them around stations. Some weekends the local taxi companies do nothing else and anyone wanting one at short notice is basically stuffed.

It's not a requirement to own a car - or even have a car driving licence - to work as traincrew. Just to be able to get to your depot location for any shift, which may include walking or cycling to work. While most crew out of cities probably do in reality have access to a car, a potential insurance issue also exists with typical Social, Domestic, Pleasure + Commuting car insurance generally covering you "to/from a single place of work", so signing on at your depot then driving to different location(s) during the course of your shift would require additional 'Business' cover.

Diagrams would also require greater care in their construction to ensure the crew returns to their car to get home. Obviously driving their own vehicle wouldn't work where the taxi is required mid-shift between locations as it'll be parked at their home location, but in the situation where the line the traincrew depot is on is closed then it's not unusual to have a shift that does say: Taxi Depot to Station A, work trains, then end up at Station B and taxi back to depot. The shift would require the driver to get back/finish at Station A with time to then drive back to depot within their hours to sign off. You'd also need to ensure Station A had sufficient parking reserved for these staff, as the car park would not only need to cater for the additional staff using it but also increased passenger numbers that may have instead driven there to avoid a bus. It wouldn't be impossible I suppose to work such things out, but would require a fairly substantial change to staff contracts to implement this, and it certainly wouldn't be a short term fix.

 

[markymark2000]

And the timetables are often unrealistic. I don't know why it seems to be deemed acceptable for train planners to write bus schedules when it clearly wouldn't be acceptable the other way around.

In my experience the timings come from many sources. The bus company themselves, the company who arranges the bus provision or the TOC, based on their own efforts at timing. In olden days it used to be a man in a Viva Van who was instructed not to go above 30mph! I have known one planner get his preserved bus out to do the timings.

The running times are often not the best. Either too tight or too lax. Some that made me chuckle recently were Leicester to Kettering blockade. Buses got 1 hour to do Leicester to Kettering but if the bus went Leicester to Market Harborough, it was 30 minutes, plus 25 mins to Kettering. Make that make sense? How does a direct faster bus get more time to do the run than the stopper bus which diverts slightly off the route to pick up people?

Or TFW giving 15 minutes from Abercynon to Pontypridd. During the worst peak time it takes that but 90% of the time, it takes 10 minutes or less. Can be done in around 5 minutes if you have a nippy bus at night. Or perhaps them giving buses an extra 5 minutes if they serve Treforrest estate despite the fact most buses go past Treforrest Estate anyway as it's quieter than the A470.
Hope to Cefn-y-bedd via Caergwle. Timed at 10 minutes, between these 3 stops, the driving distance is 1.4 miles. So as not to be sitting around, the bus would have to go 8.4 miles per hour!

The filter of a middle man between the actual bus company and the railway planners is, in my view, a regrettable one because any local company really knows the traffic conditions. When I was planning replacement services, their ability to say, no, you need to allow for the Sunday Market at X or a sports event at Y was invaluable.

There needs to be some more local input into timings but also more adapting to changing traffic conditions. Rail Replacement journey times are often the exact same all day. There is no difference at 1am Monday morning to 5pm Thursday Afternoon and so when buses are constantly late, they just increase the journey time but don't think that at 1am on a Monday, the travel time may be considerably less. The other issue that is common right now is train planners blatantly ignoring comments from on the ground. People on the ground give feedback on the timetable but nothing ever changes. The same situations happen every single time a block is on. The same feedback goes back, that feedback is then ignored and the same issues happen. Some TOCs much worse than others for this but the attitude of 'my way or the highway' is so prevalent within rail replacement bus planning. Yet when it goes to pot, those people are nowhere to be seen and somehow avoid all accountability.

Maybe but if rates were massively increased it's not going to solve the problem immediately if drivers with the appropriate licence aren't available anymore.

If rates were increased and TOCs started requesting buses earlier (Some tocs are now asking for buses far too late and so operators are already fully booked), more companies would be available and willing to take on the work. A company knows their costs and if you get offered £600 to do a duty for the day, the company will sit there and go 'we can make that work out' and take on the duty. If however they were offered £300 for the same duty, when they work out their costs, they say 'we would make a loss and therefore it is better for us to give drivers the day off rather than make a loss on a job'. We can't deny that there is a shortage of drivers but the drivers that are available are simply not willing to take big pay cuts so that the company can take on rail replacement jobs at the dismal rates. There are a lot of companies fighting for more and more coaches to do work which previously wasn't as big and combine that with lower rates for rail, why for for rail when the same bus and driver can be used elsewhere and make mega money. National Express Dupes, Megabus and Flixbus all fighting for operators right now. Staff buses seem to be on the rise now with this mostly going through agencies rather than business-operator so again, firms like Zeelo are fighting for operators. Buses going abroad or buses for foreign tourists coming over to the UK are big business at the moment as international tourism comes back. With the railways being in the state that they are, a lot more sporting events are doing dedicated buses as well. With all of this work available at weekends now, why would people do rail replacement on the pitiful rates?

 

[The Planner]

Bus times use the same system to store running times as trains. Between A and B you can only have one value.

 

[markymark2000]

Bus times use the same system to store running times as trains. Between A and B you can only have one value.

That's a flaw of the system which people need to look at then because that couldn't be further from reality and it is leading to really inefficient schedules and much longer journeys on rail replacements for passengers. For passengers, being on a rail replacement bus is bad enough as it is, without sitting around at every stop for a good few minutes awaiting time.

On trains, at least they have the timing loads or allowances etc to make the timings adjust. Buses could have that too. 'Peak bus', 'Off Peak Bus', 'Middle of the night bus' and have it that way?

 

[The Planner]

That's a flaw of the system which people need to look at then because that couldn't be further from reality and it is leading to really inefficient schedules and much longer journeys on rail replacements for passengers. For passengers, being on a rail replacement bus is bad enough as it is, without sitting around at every stop for a good few minutes awaiting time.

On trains, at least they have the timing loads or allowances etc to make the timings adjust. Buses could have that too. 'Peak bus', 'Off Peak Bus', 'Middle of the night bus' and have it that way?

No reason why not.

 

[zwk500]

That's a flaw of the system which people need to look at then because that couldn't be further from reality and it is leading to really inefficient schedules and much longer journeys on rail replacements for passengers. For passengers, being on a rail replacement bus is bad enough as it is, without sitting around at every stop for a good few minutes awaiting time.

On trains, at least they have the timing loads or allowances etc to make the timings adjust. Buses could have that too. 'Peak bus', 'Off Peak Bus', 'Middle of the night bus' and have it that way?

Of course that then increases the time train planners spend updating buses in the system, rather than validating the trains.

 

[markymark2000]

No reason why not.

If anything, that just shows the railways attitude towards rail replacement buses that they are unwilling to do things in this way and prefer to have buses running really late in peak times (with people missing their train connections) and prefer for people to be sitting around at random train stations all night and upsetting railway neighbours with an idling bus sat outside because they have given excessive amounts of time to do a trip.

Of course that then increases the time train planners spend updating buses in the system, rather than validating the trains.

To be fair, not much time is spent putting the buses into the system anyway if some TOCs are to go by. Again, some TOCs worse than others but there are so many buses put into the system with completely different times to what they have requested or buses not in the system when they should be. (A recent one is TFW missed out buses from Rhyl to Llandudno Junction for around 6 hours on a Saturday afternoon. Despite being told that they were missing, they refused to put the rest of the buses into the system).

 

[zwk500]

To be fair, not much time is spent putting the buses into the system anyway if some TOCs are to go by.

They can be quite quick if the TOC has bid them properly but they can also take ages if you have to build the schedules from scratch.
What we really need is proper bus/train integration for normal use, then RRBs would be easy to add on the end.

 

[markymark2000]

They can be quite quick if the TOC has bid them properly but they can also take ages if you have to build the schedules from scratch.

The schedules already have to be built from scratch. No one makes timetables this messy without them being built from scratch.

 

[zwk500]

The schedules already have to be built from scratch. No one makes timetables this messy without them being built from scratch.

A lot of TOCs bid the RRBs in electronically. Others send in schedules for NR planners to create them in the system manually.

 

[Fleetmaster]

Did you read it? Because it said this driverless bus will have to have two members of staff in board. Doesn't sound like a cost saving as presumably at least one of those would have to be licensed to drive it if needed.

The safety driver is a legal requirement on all autonomous vehicles currently. The bus is (or should be) driving itself at all times.

The second staff member is there to collect fares and answer questions. Presumably not essential and ultimately likely to not be needed if people get used to humanless transport.

The bus's trial is probably not relevant here, it's a very simple shuttle route. RRB's would be more like automated cars.

 

[Krokodil]

And the timetables are often unrealistic. I don't know why it seems to be deemed acceptable for train planners to write bus schedules when it clearly wouldn't be acceptable the other way around.

One issue I've come across is long-term roadworks such that a 70mph was restricted to 40mph for months on end. Buses couldn't keep time.

Maybe signing routes was less of a thing back then.

More likely that as crews wolle both passenger and freight trains they would have had a much larger route card. The current fad of doing away with diversionary rout knowledge to save a few pennies hadn't happened.

asking them to use their own cars

Plenty of traincrew don't own cars, and some don't even have licences.

No one likes the risk of adjacent line open (ALO)

It can work in some places, such as where a two track railway is running on what was once a four track formation. Some OTP such as tampers and HOBCs can work with passing traffic too, though a block may be needed to begin with.

The other issue that is common right now is train planners blatantly ignoring comments from on the ground.

Oh god yes. LDCs scrutinise diagrams and point out issues, but only have the right to reject a diagram outright if it's not compliant with rules around breaks/walking times etc. So the rep points out to train planning that a particular diagram is asking for trouble and is rebutted with "tough, it's compliant". Cue four months of snowballing delays because everything is far too tight.

 

[markymark2000]

Oh god yes. LDCs scrutinise diagrams and point out issues, but only have the right to reject a diagram outright if it's not compliant with rules around breaks/walking times etc. So the rep points out to train planning that a particular diagram is asking for trouble and is rebutted with "tough, it's compliant". Cue four months of snowballing delays because everything is far too tight.

TFW has some blinders. Giving people 3 minutes to transfer between trains and buses at Radyr and at Pontypridd. 3 whole minutes. In some cases like Pontypridd with the upcoming Treherbert block, that means getting off the train, over the bridge, down the platform slightly, down the 2 sets of stairs and out of the station. All in 3 minutes. For anyone who wishes to check this out, go to TFWs site and put in Cardiff to Treherbert as a journey for next week and it shows you 3 minute connections.

 

[RJ]

Or TFW giving 15 minutes from Abercynon to Pontypridd. During the worst peak time it takes that but 90% of the time, it takes 10 minutes or less. Can be done in around 5 minutes if you have a nippy bus at night. Or perhaps them giving buses an extra 5 minutes if they serve Treforrest estate despite the fact most buses go past Treforrest Estate anyway as it's quieter than the A470.

With single deck buses that deliver 275-299bhp and happily sit at 60mph, it takes 8 minutes between Pontypridd and Abercynon at night.

Bus times use the same system to store running times as trains. Between A and B you can only have one value.

But engineering or pathing allowances can still be appended to these trips? Is it possible for those values to be negative?

London Overground replacements were an interesting case study. TfL have timebands and transition periods which is what went to the bus operators to run, but the GBTT had a different set of runtimes presumably fixed across the day so for years there was a situation where National Rail data sources online and at stations were advertising different departure times to what the buses were running! Not looked recently to see if that was fixed but it must have been known about.

TFW has some blinders. Giving people 3 minutes to transfer between trains and buses at Radyr and at Pontypridd. 3 whole minutes. In some cases like Pontypridd with the upcoming Treherbert block, that means getting off the train, over the bridge, down the platform slightly, down the 2 sets of stairs and out of the station. All in 3 minutes. For anyone who wishes to check this out, go to TFWs site and put in Cardiff to Treherbert as a journey for next week and it shows you 3 minute connections.

The controllers are on the ball and will pick up on that pretty quickly. No doubt they will hold buses for arriving trains. I think the times are for guidance as Ponty to Porth traffic can and often does throw it all out of the window at peak times.

 

[markymark2000]

With single deck buses that deliver 275-299bhp and happily sit at 60mph, it takes 8 minutes between Pontypridd and Abercynon at night.

Even at 8 minutes (some are quick drivers and depends if lights are in your favour etc), giving 15 minutes to do the journey heading northbound is excessive. Southbound having a bit of padding makes sense as then it gives padding in Pontypridd as people board/alight in larger numbers.

The controllers will pick up on that pretty quickly and hold buses for arriving trains. I think the times are for guidance as Ponty to Porth traffic can and often does throw it all out of the window at peak times.

Why should buses be held because a TOC is giving a stupid 3 minutes connection time. Everyone is told to be at the train/bus 5 minutes before departure to ensure on time departures. Train doors close 30-60 seconds before departure. If you are expecting a 3 minute connection, every bus will be held and on the Treherbert line, the times aren't as slack so the buses will be late for the rest of the journey. They wouldn't hold trains for a 3 minute connection. Once again, they expect buses to perform stupid things because their planning team can't plan properly and don't think about practicalities.

 

[zwk500]

But engineering or pathing allowances can still be appended to these trips? Is it possible for those values to be negative?

In theory yes they can be applied but they can't be negative. Adjustment allowance can be negative, but any kind of actually having to change the times at the NR end will take time away from validation of the train plan.
It'll be interesting to see what happens when NR finally gets rid of SRTs and moves to dynamic calculation but there's a loooong way to go on that front.

 

[43066]

Why should buses be held because a TOC is giving a stupid 3 minutes connection time. Everyone is told to be at the train/bus 5 minutes before departure to ensure on time departures. Train doors close 30-60 seconds before departure. If you are expecting a 3 minute connection, every bus will be held and on the Treherbert line, the times aren't as slack so the buses will be late for the rest of the journey. They wouldn't hold trains for a 3 minute connection. Once again, they expect buses to perform stupid things because their planning team can't plan properly and don't think about practicalities.

In general I would agree, but if we’re talking about railway replacement buses specifically, then surely it’s not unreasonable to expect that they should be held for trains?

It would be a little ridiculous if the passengers from a slightly delayed train walked into the station car park only to see the on time RRB driving away empty!

 

[800301]

Even at 8 minutes (some are quick drivers and depends if lights are in your favour etc), giving 15 minutes to do the journey heading northbound is excessive. Southbound having a bit of padding makes sense as then it gives padding in Pontypridd as people board/alight in larger numbers.

Excessive times are extremely common with Southeastern Rail Replacements which often leads to frustration with passengers sitting on a bus being delayed even further. Gravesend to Dartford sticks in my head as a painful one where it’s normally at least 5 min waits at each station even at 4am in the morning

Quite a lot of routes are overtimed even with traffic, I remembering driving Newbury Park to Shenfield and were instructed not to serve Chadwell Heath, this meant getting to Romford nearly 20mins early and transferring passengers to the bus in front to save them waiting, the amount of time given for the bus to do the route was longer than the normal service bus that also had bus stops along the route, comical

I really do wish some effort went into doing the timings for these services as not only in some cases resources could be cut down but it just makes it better for everyone when the journey is quicker

 

[The Planner]

It'll be interesting to see what happens when NR finally gets rid of SRTs and moves to dynamic calculation but there's a loooong way to go on that front.

just a tad considering it was meant to start happening 13 years ago....

 

[zwk500]

just a tad considering it was meant to start happening 13 years ago....

Has the dynamic infrastructure model even come in yet? I sat in on a couple of the TPS Upgrade meetings towards the end of my time at NR and it was clear that nothing was going to happen for a very long time.