Letter to First

[Jim]

It's only the kind of shock reaction that if something on the railways happenned like this, they'd expect to get.
After paying £18 a week to a greedy bus company, who cannot properly run buses ontime, the least I'd expect was for the drivers to know the way.

All that will happen is the driver will get bollocked and you will get a standard letter response.

Which means the fares will go up to pay to train the new driver & before that you will have an EVEN more UNREALIALE bus service


I see both sides here, but agree with Eazypeasy on the route signing idea. I agree, however, that drivers should be expected to know the way (although when they do I am real unhappy... )

 

[Tom B]

I suppose a line should be drawn between "normal" and "exceptional" routes - drivers must know all the normal routes they work (or could work), but if there are diversions no-one can really forsee or train for them.

 

[devon_metro]

Could bus companies not install route planning devices so if a driver does not know where to go then they can use the device, which could be coded with different routes.

 

[Jim]

I suppose a line should be drawn between "normal" and "exceptional" routes - drivers must know all the normal routes they work (or could work), but if there are diversions no-one can really forsee or train for them.

You see the driver could of been on spare TBH

 

[Tom B]

You'd think a spare driver would be one who has knowledge of all routes...

 

[AlexS]

A bus driver could never learn all the routes out of their depot - I know Wolverhampton TWM depot has at least 50 routes attached to it.

The difference between a railway driver and a bus driver, is that there are less possible rail routes to have to learn. A driver might know two or three core routes with some diversionaries. A bus driver could have learn potentially 50 routes if that idea was to come in, all in areas that could potentially look the same.

Also, the chances of a train driver getting lost (except for taking a wrong stick, unlikely!) are many many many times smaller than the chance of a bus driver getting lost. On a train, you can go only where the rails take you. On a bus, it goes where you tell it to.

 

[Techniquest]

Could bus companies not install route planning devices so if a driver does not know where to go then they can use the device, which could be coded with different routes.

Can you imagine the cost of installing such a system onto a large fleet of buses? Then there's the training for it, relying on drivers using it and properly...

I don't see what the big fuss is. It would have been better to provide the driver with a photocopied map, highlighting the route to take as well as the day's diagram, though.

 

[Jim]

You'd think a spare driver would be one who has knowledge of all routes...

No, as it is part of the rota that covers the XX but has a day on spare when first can throw the book at him so to speak