Shortage of buses to replace trains

[Flying Snail]

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!

No more ridiculous than the train slinking away while the passengers watch from the approaching bus as has happened to me more than once.

 

[43066]

No more ridiculous than the train slinking away while the passengers watch from the approaching bus as has happened to me more than once.

But in this case the railway is paying for the bus. So the bus running to its own timetable to the detriment of rail passengers is very much a case of tail wagging dog!

 

[philthetube]

There might be some people out there who would be OK with a job where they were working every weekend, away from home 3 nights over every weekend, but I'm not sure there would be that much of a rush for it. And the economics of paying people a full time wage for 2 days' productive work a week plus the hotel bills would probably be a bit alarming.

They could cut down on demand through by reducing cancellations due to clapped out trains and employ enough staff to run them to ease the need for RRB

As I said, at a cost, al depends on the cash.

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.

Ha this on the underground, worked ok until the buses were full, watch passenger reaction when train crew try to push in.

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.

loads of delay repay.

 

[Mwanesh]

I was talking to my ex boss on the buses about this topic. He said the buses are there.They have part time drivers who can do the job. What's happening now is that they can't do things at short notice. They have planned for Silverstone already. Most of the big groups have buses in their yards. You have to factor in support staff in the office.

 

[Edsmith]

The situation isn't helped by a double decker on rail replacement hitting a low bridge in Staines yesterday and being totally deroofed. No injuries as far as I'm aware.

 

[3RDGEN]

If there is a move to mid week blocks then buses/drivers will be even more of an issue as they will have school/college contracts in place. Coach companies will have the Monday - Friday holiday trips on too.

 

[Craig1122]

When was it when rail replacement buses first were used by railway companies?

Didcot to Newbury had bus replacement when it was upgraded during world war 2 so it's been a while!

 

[Roger1973]

If there is a move to mid week blocks then buses/drivers will be even more of an issue as they will have school/college contracts in place. Coach companies will have the Monday - Friday holiday trips on too.

Yes and no - there seems to have been more week long blocks in school holidays in recent years - the February and October half term weeks will generally have less holiday work on for coach operators, and of course bus operators won't generally have holiday work on.

Trying to do short blocks during school term is probably not going to be a success, though.

 

[markymark2000]

Trying to do short blocks during school term is probably not going to be a success, though.

Someone must be doing well with bus booking at the Trans Pennine Upgrade is ongoing as is the Oxford-Didcot emergency block. I know right now is Easter holidays but the TPU block was going on prior to the holidays and will continue after. The Oxford-Didcot similarly will continue after the holidays. A good number of blocks can manage through school term, it just depends on the area and other commitments. I know some operators who have or are planning to throw back schools because they prefer to have their buses available for rail replacement if/when it comes up.

TFW do tend to have issues on the Valleys blocks which happen through the week during school term but I suppose at the same time, South Wales has a shortage of PSVAR compliant vehicles because of how they do their school services (services buses tend to only be bought by those doing local bus service work and of course everyday work takes priority). Blocks in Shrewsbury which go through the school term though seem to be less of an issue as there are normally a few firms with 1 vehicle available or those who can juggle about work.

 

[matt_world2004]

In tfL land , rail replacement bus timetables are done by the bus company. But those that offer the quickest service for the cheapest price often win the contract. There is little in the way of practicality checking on if the timetable is workable.

For normal bus routes the contract is similar but the bus operator is given data on running times and also tfl are more likely to reject the contract if the running times promised by the operator is undeliverable

TfL will reject a contract if the stand time is impractical too

 

[RJ]

In tfL land , rail replacement bus timetables are done by the bus company. But those that offer the quickest service for the cheapest price often win the contract. There is little in the way of practicality checking on if the timetable is workable.

For normal bus routes the contract is similar but the bus operator is given data on running times and also tfl are more likely to reject the contract if the running times promised by the operator is undeliverable

TfL will reject a contract if the stand time is impractical too

The spec, running times and timebands are set centrally by the rail replacement team at TfL. Route runs are carried out and previous trip data aids with setting these times. The operator's role is to bid with a schedule that meets that spec - they can decide what layovers are required and how to manage costs associated with travel time and vehicle positioning moves. The latter adds well into four figures to the cost of a weekend job.

 

[Horizon22]

The spec, running times and timebands are set centrally by the rail replacement team at TfL. Route runs are carried out and previous trip data aids with setting these times. The operator's role is to bid with a schedule that meets that spec - they can decide what layovers are required.

TfL don't always do rail replacement either - sometimes they will refer passengers to the existing bus network, if it is suitable.

The biggest issues are at the extremities of the network in outer (or outside) London.

 

[RJ]

TfL don't always do rail replacement either - sometimes they will refer passengers to the existing bus network, if it is suitable.

The biggest issues are at the extremities of the network in outer (or outside) London.

The local buses arrangement is mostly for the central London area, routes which consistently had extremely low passenger numbers and night routes that already have a bus that covers the majority of the route.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 15 Apr 2023 ==

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.

Some evening Treherbert trips, the slack is stripped out. 21 minutes are given from Porth to Treorchy serving all stops. 7 minutes are given from Porth to Llwynypia via Dinas and Tonypandy which by my reckoning is faster than the train's running times!

 

[boiledbeans2]

Someone must be doing well with bus booking at the Trans Pennine Upgrade is ongoing as is the Oxford-Didcot emergency block.

They must have taken up all the buses originally intended for SWR land. Today (Sunday) the SWML is out between Woking and Winchester/Andover. Looking at the post-Saturday 10pm timetable, there will be major gaps, up to 3h, when the original plan was a bus (sometimes 2 for stopping/fast services) every 30mins!

 

[joncombe]

They must have taken up all the buses originally intended for SWR land. Today (Sunday) the SWML is out between Woking and Winchester/Andover. Looking at the post-Saturday 10pm timetable, there will be major gaps, up to 3h, when the original plan was a bus (sometimes 2 for stopping/fast services) every 30mins!

Bases on my experience the last few weekends it seems typical for about half the replacement buses to be cancelled on SWR.

 

[boiledbeans2]

They must have taken up all the buses originally intended for SWR land. Today (Sunday) the SWML is out between Woking and Winchester/Andover. Looking at the post-Saturday 10pm timetable, there will be major gaps, up to 3h, when the original plan was a bus (sometimes 2 for stopping/fast services) every 30mins!

The SWML was a complete mess that day (Sunday). As I mentioned, there was a 3h gap in buses to Winchester, so I arrived at the station to board the last bus before the 3h gap... only to find that bus was also cancelled. On a positive note, they sent me on trains the long way round to Winchester - via Havant and Fareham.

Later that day at about 2pm, a person was hit by a train at Swaythling. So the entire Southampton area was disrupted when they turned off the traction current. The delays continued till about 7pm.

So a bad day for the SWML in terms of trains and buses.