How do you sort the bus driver shortage issue out?

[Deleted]

Without a question in all bus companies of different sizes, there is a bus driver shortage.

How do we sort the issue out? What can be attracted for more people to become a bus driver?

I wouldn't personally want to do it, the job very stressful, dealing with pressure of management, customers, and people on the roads.  People who can get abusive quite easily and the poor driver gets the brunt of it. The hours and schedule could be quite demanding. Hours unsociable as well. 

How do we sort this out? Does actually adding on things like signing on bonuses, or referral schemes, ect actually do anything?

You can't pull people off the dole and force them to become bus drivers because for 1 most people on the dole are disabled/long term sick, and don't have a car licence or a PCV licence.  2, most people on benefits are either pensioners, state pension is classed as a benefit or people are getting Universal Credit on a top up of their wages and already in work.

I notice National Express a few years back was giving ex service people, a guaranteed interview, don't know if this is still the case. 

[mattb7tl]

I heard last that the primary issue isn't the shortage of drivers, but rather the high attrition rate among new recruits in the industry. This is why I believe that reducing service frequencies isn't a viable solution. While it might appear to alleviate the demand for drivers, it fails to address the core issue of driver retention.

In my view, resolving this challenge is a waiting game. Many drivers still have a genuine passion for their work, and with the recent explosive popularity of the bus enthusiast community, some individuals are destined to join the profession and have greater resilience in handling industry related issues.

[MetrolineGA1511]

Transdev and Stagecoach at least are giving guaranteed interviews to departing Wilko staff who wish to join them.

[stephen01]

Sept 16, 2023 10:31:02 GMT 1 MetrolineGA1511 said:

Transdev and Stagecoach at least are giving guaranteed interviews to departing Wilko staff who wish to join them.

so are Yorkshire Buses.

[Deleted]

I remember in the late 1990s, London was crying out for bus drivers, so companies like Blackpool Transport was training drivers from Blackpool and then going down to London and I believe TFL helped arrange drivers accomdation ect, down there too.

[deerfold]

Sept 16, 2023 11:10:10 GMT 1 @scrooge said:

I remember in the late 1990s, London was crying out for bus drivers, so companies like Blackpool Transport was training drivers from Blackpool and then going down to London and I believe TFL helped arrange drivers accomdation ect, down there too.

When Blazefield London Sovereign won the contract for the 13, there were a few Keighley drivers went down to run it (with Routemasters) whilst they were waiting for permanent drivers to work out their notice on their previous jobs.

[ratty]

Sept 16, 2023 15:26:33 GMT 1 deerfold said:

Sept 16, 2023 11:10:10 GMT 1 @scrooge said:

I remember in the late 1990s, London was crying out for bus drivers, so companies like Blackpool Transport was training drivers from Blackpool and then going down to London and I believe TFL helped arrange drivers accomdation ect, down there too.

When Blazefield London Sovereign won the contract for the 13, there were a few Keighley drivers went down to run it (with Routemasters) whilst they were waiting for permanent drivers to work out their notice on their previous jobs.

All of the drivers at Blackpool Transport were existing drivers, who moved down there in 2 batches in the January of 2003, and stayed there untilMay 2003 at Putney Garage. Although about 6 stayed after then rather thango back home. Blackpool Transport was still employing and training new drivers at the same time. The ones at Putney were largely employed on the 4 day OPO roster, and for day off working largely worked the 14 and 22 routes on RML's. This meant that every 4 weeks they were off from lunch Friday or Thursday night night buses until late turn Thursday, giving them chance to 'holiday' for a few days with partners etc. London General secured largely 2 or 3 bedroom houses/ maisonettes, the drivers paying for gas/electric/water and £6 a week Council Tax.

[Father Dougal McGuire]

Need to stop with the continuous working. Fair enough they are 5 day weeks, but when those weeks overlap you end up working 9 days on the bounce, resulting in great stress and fatigue on the driver. It never used to be like that, it needs to stop.

[smithy]

Arriva cannot do much only think they can do is put big route like 110 put them back on 30 Min off peak then a select out of trip peak time 20

Same with 254s long in-between in the off peak

And have 1 route from Leeds to Huddersfield
The other hourly daytime Leeds to Dewsbury

[Deleted]

110 can't be split to 30 minutes, that would cause chaos throughout Wakefield and Leeds, the buses would be so full, people would abuse the poor drivers because they can't get on. It was bad enough when 110 got frequency reduced to every 15 minutes, I'd argue the 110 needs to go back to every 10 minutes.

[Username]

Sept 17, 2023 17:17:40 GMT 1 smithy said:

Arriva cannot do much only think they can do is put big route like 110 put them back on 30 Min off peak then a select out of trip peak time 20

Same with 254s long in-between in the off peak

And have 1 route from Leeds to Huddersfield
The other hourly daytime Leeds to Dewsbury

One route from Leeds to Huddersfield? The 229 runs from a different depot to 202/3 which means it won't help with a driver shortage in any shape of form. Also withdrawing one of them routes will be complete and utter chaos as they're both very profitable Arriva routes.

Unless what you mean is one route from Dewsbury depot between Leeds and Huddersfield an hour which would also mess up the service. You suggested 2 an hour between Leeds and Dewsbury which would just cause controversy. It would also be an unnecessary change as Dewsbury depot aren't struggling with drivers that's Heckmondwike. 

[smithy]

Half of the 110s don't run anyway with driver shortage and when there allways late theres 2 buses running in pairs

[Deleted]

Sept 17, 2023 17:42:35 GMT 1 smithy said:

Half of the 110s don't run anyway with driver shortage and when there allways late theres 2 buses running in pairs

Thats because the bus in front has been held up with roadworks or something which means, the one behind the ends up having to catch up. Nothing Arriva can do about that. The bus in front picks up the passengers as well.

I do think the public exaggerate a bit with their complaints regarding how many buses don't turn up.  If you look at bustimes, you will see in fact most journey's actually do run. They think if one service doesn't run it means every bus isn't running.

[mattb7tl]

No route deserves a frequency decrease.
WYCA says we have stabilized at 85% of trips from 2019. Despite from buses everywhere being around half the amount per hour. That's extremely impressive from my point of view and if those original frequency's ever get restored it is possible with all of the great stuff from the mayor in place we could experience perhaps a little bit of growth compared to numbers in 2019.
Josh said what matters the most, being overworked more than ever before. That isn't going to help with driver retention which makes reducing services ineffective.

[Deleted]

Sept 17, 2023 17:46:21 GMT 1 mattb7tl said:

No route deserves a frequency decrease.
WYCA says we have stabilized at 85% of trips from 2019. Despite from buses everywhere being around half the amount per hour. That's extremely impressive from my point of view and if those original frequency's ever get restored it is possible with all of the great stuff from the mayor in place we could experience perhaps a little bit of growth compared to numbers in 2019.
Josh said what matters the most, being overworked more than ever before. That isn't going to help with driver retention which makes reducing services ineffective.

The public don't realise how much the drivers are overworked, if a driver comes off their break 1 minute late, the public report them, even though probably had to have a delayed break due to being caught up in traffic or something on a previous trip.

85 percent of the amount is a lot higher than I thought it would be considering with COVID, ect, so thats good.

If people and management treated drivers like human beings and not like machines or robots, then perhaps drivers will stay longer.    I think with COVID, we've realised as a country there is more to life than work, and mental health is becoming a more important thing in society, which I think is great. Mental Health is just as important as Physical Health and being overworked, not is bad for your physical health but impacts your mental health.

Its wrong, that bus companies treat the drivers like rubbish and I bet some people in management, have no idea what its like for drivers.

[smithy]

Or put the 229 short trips to hecky with the short 254 to clearkhearten as the trip times are the same

[deerfold]

Sept 17, 2023 17:50:36 GMT 1 @scrooge said:

Sept 17, 2023 17:46:21 GMT 1 mattb7tl said:

No route deserves a frequency decrease.
WYCA says we have stabilized at 85% of trips from 2019. Despite from buses everywhere being around half the amount per hour. That's extremely impressive from my point of view and if those original frequency's ever get restored it is possible with all of the great stuff from the mayor in place we could experience perhaps a little bit of growth compared to numbers in 2019.
Josh said what matters the most, being overworked more than ever before. That isn't going to help with driver retention which makes reducing services ineffective.

The public don't realise how much the drivers are overworked, if a driver comes off their break 1 minute late, the public report them, even though probably had to have a delayed break due to being caught up in traffic or something on a previous trip.

85 percent of the amount is a lot higher than I thought it would be considering with COVID, ect, so thats good.

If people and management treated drivers like human beings and not like machines or robots, then perhaps drivers will stay longer.    I think with COVID, we've realised as a country there is more to life than work, and mental health is becoming a more important thing in society, which I think is great. Mental Health is just as important as Physical Health and being overworked, not is bad for your physical health but impacts your mental health.

Its wrong, that bus companies treat the drivers like rubbish and I bet some people in management, have no idea what its like for drivers.

Do the public report a driver? Or are they just annoyed that their bus is late and assume the bus company will work out why that happened?

[Deleted]

Sept 17, 2023 18:11:39 GMT 1 deerfold said:

Sept 17, 2023 17:50:36 GMT 1 @scrooge said:

The public don't realise how much the drivers are overworked, if a driver comes off their break 1 minute late, the public report them, even though probably had to have a delayed break due to being caught up in traffic or something on a previous trip.

85 percent of the amount is a lot higher than I thought it would be considering with COVID, ect, so thats good.

If people and management treated drivers like human beings and not like machines or robots, then perhaps drivers will stay longer.    I think with COVID, we've realised as a country there is more to life than work, and mental health is becoming a more important thing in society, which I think is great. Mental Health is just as important as Physical Health and being overworked, not is bad for your physical health but impacts your mental health.

Its wrong, that bus companies treat the drivers like rubbish and I bet some people in management, have no idea what its like for drivers.

Do you public report a driver? Or are they just annoyed that their bus is late and assume the bus company will work out why that happened?

Public report drivers for all sorts of ridiculous reasons, driver can explain to them about whats happened, but a minority of people wont believe that at all, public take their frustrations out on the driver.  A  minority of public thinks drivers are lazy, look at when the World Cup final was on, Arriva Bus drivers was getting accused by public for being lazy and skyiving of work, which wasn't true at all! 

[Father Dougal McGuire]

Sept 17, 2023 18:11:39 GMT 1 deerfold said:

Sept 17, 2023 17:50:36 GMT 1 @scrooge said:

The public don't realise how much the drivers are overworked, if a driver comes off their break 1 minute late, the public report them, even though probably had to have a delayed break due to being caught up in traffic or something on a previous trip.

85 percent of the amount is a lot higher than I thought it would be considering with COVID, ect, so thats good.

If people and management treated drivers like human beings and not like machines or robots, then perhaps drivers will stay longer.    I think with COVID, we've realised as a country there is more to life than work, and mental health is becoming a more important thing in society, which I think is great. Mental Health is just as important as Physical Health and being overworked, not is bad for your physical health but impacts your mental health.

Its wrong, that bus companies treat the drivers like rubbish and I bet some people in management, have no idea what its like for drivers.

Do you public report a driver? Or are they just annoyed that their bus is late and assume the bus company will work out why that happened?

A few months ago a driver (definitely not me) was late off for their break so took their full break which they are entitled to do so and was going to run the service 30 minutes late. Goes out to the bus, gets on it, lets passengers on until someone come down giving them grief about it, after explaining the situation kindly they wouldn't go away and continued standing there recording with their phone trying to tell the driver the legalities of driving hours etc all because they knew someone who was a bus driver. So then the driver decided not to bother and told the rest of the passengers it's not running now because of this one person and they all caught the next bus which arrived shortly after. Driver then took the bus private to a point on route and turned around and came back and finished on time. Absolutely no need for the abuse, there are ways of doing it and most passengers get it but for the minority who don't they certainly make up for it.

[deerfold]

Sept 17, 2023 18:26:09 GMT 1 Father Dougal McGuire said:

Sept 17, 2023 18:11:39 GMT 1 deerfold said:

Do you public report a driver? Or are they just annoyed that their bus is late and assume the bus company will work out why that happened?

A few months ago a driver (definitely not me) was late off for their break so took their full break which they are entitled to do so and was going to run the service 30 minutes late. Goes out to the bus, gets on it, lets passengers on until someone come down giving them grief about it, after explaining the situation kindly they wouldn't go away and continued standing there recording with their phone trying to tell the driver the legalities of driving hours etc all because they knew someone who was a bus driver. So then the driver decided not to bother and told the rest of the passengers it's not running now because of this one person and they all caught the next bus which arrived shortly after. Driver then took the bus private to a point on route and turned around and came back and finished on time. Absolutely no need for the abuse, there are ways of doing it and most passengers get it but for the minority who don't they certainly make up for it.

That's not reporting a driver. That's abusing a driver. I'm saying most of those complaining to the company don't really care where the problem is - they just want the problem to stop happening.

[Deleted]

Sept 17, 2023 18:36:48 GMT 1 deerfold said:

Sept 17, 2023 18:26:09 GMT 1 Father Dougal McGuire said:

A few months ago a driver (definitely not me) was late off for their break so took their full break which they are entitled to do so and was going to run the service 30 minutes late. Goes out to the bus, gets on it, lets passengers on until someone come down giving them grief about it, after explaining the situation kindly they wouldn't go away and continued standing there recording with their phone trying to tell the driver the legalities of driving hours etc all because they knew someone who was a bus driver. So then the driver decided not to bother and told the rest of the passengers it's not running now because of this one person and they all caught the next bus which arrived shortly after. Driver then took the bus private to a point on route and turned around and came back and finished on time. Absolutely no need for the abuse, there are ways of doing it and most passengers get it but for the minority who don't they certainly make up for it.

That's not reporting a driver. That's abusing a driver. I'm saying most of those complaining to the company don't really care where the problem is - they just want the problem to stop happening.

Perhaps the public need to be more aware of who to report the issues too? Not going up and ranting and abusing the driver won't help your case. All big companies need to take note of how Yorkshire Buses social media pages are, with their regular updates and apologies. People are fed up with the generic replies they get off Arriva when they complain and I get that because it gives the impression they are being fobbed off.

I think lack of communication is one of the Arriva's users frustrations and rightly so, and the highly unreliable app, if anyone has used it you will understand.

[deerfold]

Sept 17, 2023 18:39:43 GMT 1 @scrooge said:

Sept 17, 2023 18:36:48 GMT 1 deerfold said:

That's not reporting a driver. That's abusing a driver. I'm saying most of those complaining to the company don't really care where the problem is - they just want the problem to stop happening.

Perhaps the public need to be more aware of who to report the issues too? Not going up and ranting and abusing the driver won't help your case. All big companies need to take note of how Yorkshire Buses social media pages are, with their regular updates and apologies. People are fed up with the generic replies they get off Arriva when they complain and I get that because it gives the impression they are being fobbed off.

I think lack of communication is one of the Arriva's users frustrations and rightly so, and the highly unreliable app, if anyone has used it you will understand.

I'm not advocating abusing drivers. I was pointing out that that situation is not what I was commenting on.

[Deleted]

Sept 17, 2023 19:16:06 GMT 1 deerfold said:

Sept 17, 2023 18:39:43 GMT 1 @scrooge said:

Perhaps the public need to be more aware of who to report the issues too? Not going up and ranting and abusing the driver won't help your case. All big companies need to take note of how Yorkshire Buses social media pages are, with their regular updates and apologies. People are fed up with the generic replies they get off Arriva when they complain and I get that because it gives the impression they are being fobbed off.

I think lack of communication is one of the Arriva's users frustrations and rightly so, and the highly unreliable app, if anyone has used it you will understand.

I'm not advocating abusing drivers. I was pointing out that that situation is not what I was commenting on.

But when things do go wrong, the first person they people complain to is the driver as because its the first person from the bus company they see, the driver probably doesn't know what is going on themselves, unless, been radioed through. 

[Deleted]

Sept 17, 2023 17:46:21 GMT 1 mattb7tl said:

No route deserves a frequency decrease.
WYCA says we have stabilized at 85% of trips from 2019. Despite from buses everywhere being around half the amount per hour. That's extremely impressive from my point of view and if those original frequency's ever get restored it is possible with all of the great stuff from the mayor in place we could experience perhaps a little bit of growth compared to numbers in 2019.
Josh said what matters the most, being overworked more than ever before. That isn't going to help with driver retention which makes reducing services ineffective.

I Agree no route deserves a frequency reduction, but we are 2 years into the driver shortages so surely at some point abit a realism needs to kick in over how much mileage operators can operate before damage gets done to passenger numbers due to timetables being almost a work of fiction on some routes (alongside the information from the operators & the tracking being equally as useless at times)

Over better working hours/flexibility, First in Scotland have introduced fixed part time hours for certain times of the week, such as off Peak M-Fri for parents or Weekends for Students what might be something to look at introducing in West Yorkshire if they've not done already.

It will be interesting to see if the big recruitment drive Go North West have done over in Greater Manchester has paid off & more importantly if they manage to retain most of them in the coming months.

[dlspotter]

Sept 17, 2023 20:35:46 GMT 1 @cp2012 said:

Sept 17, 2023 17:46:21 GMT 1 mattb7tl said:

No route deserves a frequency decrease.
WYCA says we have stabilized at 85% of trips from 2019. Despite from buses everywhere being around half the amount per hour. That's extremely impressive from my point of view and if those original frequency's ever get restored it is possible with all of the great stuff from the mayor in place we could experience perhaps a little bit of growth compared to numbers in 2019.
Josh said what matters the most, being overworked more than ever before. That isn't going to help with driver retention which makes reducing services ineffective.

I Agree no route deserves a frequency reduction, but we are 2 years into the driver shortages so surely at some point abit a realism needs to kick in over how much mileage operators can operate before damage gets done to passenger numbers due to timetables being almost a work of fiction on some routes (alongside the information from the operators & the tracking being equally as useless at times)

Over better working hours/flexibility, First in Scotland have introduced fixed part time hours for certain times of the week, such as off Peak M-Fri for parents or Weekends for Students what might be something to look at introducing in West Yorkshire if they've not done already.

It will be interesting to see if the big recruitment drive Go North West have done over in Greater Manchester has paid off & more importantly if they manage to retain most of them in the coming months.

Despite not being a trained bus driver (I have a regular license and most companies offer training anyway) I, as a student, would be jumping at the opportunity to drive buses on the weekends and perhaps evenings as a part time job. I know there's a lot of abuse and stress in the job but a lot of my friends work in retail and hospitality part time and also have their fair share of bad stories of the public. If an opportunity like that arose in my area (with training) I would sign up immediately.