Not CAN complain but MUST complain. Every time. Silence denotes assent and TOCs will take the lack of a complaint as an indication of satisfaction!
Completely agree with this. The only way that things can be improved is if there is a comprehensive understanding of what and where things are going wrong. Hence my suggestion up thread of 'Tweet the co-ordinator'. If, after every instance of RRBs, there was a comprehensive list of insufficient buses, passenger loaded onto wrong bus, missed connections, drivers delaying departure as they took essential rest breaks, buses 'vanishing' or taking bizarre routes, etc. then TOCs would be able to review their own processes (e.g. announcements or procurement) or the suppliers' actions.
This sort of thing is parallel with my long term support of Delay Attribution - probably corporate BR's last great achievement. We always knew that loads of trains were delayed and cancelled but never really knew quite why until it came along.
I can personally testify to some absolute carnage on RRBs back in BR days, both for pre-planned and emergency situations. My very first experience of 'co-ordinating' buses for an engineering job was when I was a fairly new Traffic Manager somewhere in the North West. The phone rang one Friday afternoon with the news that I was being rostered for a 12-hour shift the following day for a junction renewal job. Owing to some ghastly process breakdown no buses had been ordered and no posters or leaflets produced. "But don't worry, we're sending you the stuff in a despatch bag this evening."
I booked on the following morning when, rather strangely, a normal service was running before being culled at lunchtime as the possession began. Hence many passengers had booked tickets for day trips oblivious of what was to come. I had to dash round a dozen stations in the yellow BR van sticking up posters on which the ink had scarcely dried.
The bus schedules had been cobbled together out of thin air and I was soon to discover that they involved some vehicles teleporting instantly between the three terminal points and other exciting breakneck schedules of as little as eight minutes for complex journeys that would take up to an hour by road. There was no allowance for bus driver rest breaks. Nor were there sufficient seats to accommodate the number of blissfully ignorant returning passengers who suddenly found themselves turfed off trains at the interchange points.
Fortunately the bus drivers were remarkably co-operative in turning a blind eye to normal rules. I counted thirty passengers standing upstairs on one double-decker! The yellow BR van came into its own with mopping up the waifs and strays. Seven people could be wedged in the back, I discovered.
Monday's despatch bag contained a fizzing letter from the Area Manger's office noting that there had been numerous complaints about the 'arrangements' and execution, asking ME to explain myself. In a particularly neat twist I was advised that I was being considered for formal discipline for the heinous offence of buying a packet of drawing pins from booking office cash to put the posters up.
This experience stayed with me throughout my career and in later years, as a Service Group Manager involved with pre-planning major blockades, I went to great lengths to think through the bus arrangements and often went out to 'mystery shop' early on so that things could be tweaked if necessary.
Even with personal supervision things could still go spectacularly wrong. During the Tall Ships Race at Chatham in July 1985 there was a massive third rail power failure through the Medway Towns just before the evening rush hour began. I rang Control from Rochester. What were the chances of local bus provision, I was asked. Well the entire street pattern from Rochester through Chatham was closed for a huge carnival and not a road vehicle of any description could move in the area. No Medway Tunnel in those days. Ten-Thousand passengers had a very long evening on stalled trains.
