The biggest issues are the staff turnovers and not being able to replace them fast enough due to issues with the DVLA taking ages to process anything, know people who are waiting about 5 months just to take a car driving test!
The reason there was less complaints to Arriva when they had shortages back in February/March was because most of us were being ordered to stay at home (lockdown) and to combat some of the burden Go North East & Stanley Travel were brought in to cover most runs on the 46 & 51/51A.
I don't think it's wrong at all for passengers to be complaining about their service not being provided and this is not specific to one operator, was in Middlesbrough Bus Station on Saturday afternoon and the queue for the Stagecoach 36/37/38 which had gaps in service was a mile long with some instead opting for Arriva's X12/X22/X66/X67 to reach Stockton.
Lack of communication is another issue, Arriva in particular give you little to no indication as to if anything is cancelled, Go North East took quite a while to think to give an advance list of cancellations for the following day to plan around the disruption (the Twitter cancellation posts are little help in that regard, typically just confirms your suspicions when a bus hasn't turned up).
With all this in mind it's little wonder customers are absolutely cheesed off, the fact companies are now putting out messages to be kind to drivers paints a picture on the ground to the mood as to how customers are feeling about the service being provided.
"With all this in mind it's little wonder customers are absolutely cheesed off, the fact companies are now putting out messages to be kind to drivers paints a picture on the ground to the mood as to how customers are feeling about the service being provided."
And with that in mind it's no wonder drivers are cheesed off too with all the abuse they get through no fault of their own. I am delighted to say that I am retired from bus industry now! Two friends of mine have just resigned from GNE and they had 39 years service between them, this is an appalling indictment.
(12 Oct 2021, 10:18 am)Train8261 I'm saying there's people out there still complaining about it even when there given days notice. The fact is the public don't understand how bad its hit business. How many complaining did you see to Arriva when they were hit with driver shortages. Go North East are at least telling people there's gonna be service cancellations. Is any other services doing this. (Possibly not thay I've seen) yet go North East are hit with complain left right and centre.
I mean Go North East this year alone have been hit by the media a ton of times. (Pay to drivers, Cancel of service, Service changes) you name it
(12 Oct 2021, 10:18 am)Train8261 I'm saying there's people out there still complaining about it even when there given days notice. The fact is the public don't understand how bad its hit business. How many complaining did you see to Arriva when they were hit with driver shortages. Go North East are at least telling people there's gonna be service cancellations. Is any other services doing this. (Possibly not thay I've seen) yet go North East are hit with complain left right and centre.
I mean Go North East this year alone have been hit by the media a ton of times. (Pay to drivers, Cancel of service, Service changes) you name it
(12 Oct 2021, 10:18 am)Train8261 I'm saying there's people out there still complaining about it even when there given days notice. The fact is the public don't understand how bad its hit business. How many complaining did you see to Arriva when they were hit with driver shortages. Go North East are at least telling people there's gonna be service cancellations. Is any other services doing this. (Possibly not thay I've seen) yet go North East are hit with complain left right and centre.
I mean Go North East this year alone have been hit by the media a ton of times. (Pay to drivers, Cancel of service, Service changes) you name it
(12 Oct 2021, 10:18 am)Train8261 I'm saying there's people out there still complaining about it even when there given days notice. The fact is the public don't understand how bad its hit business. How many complaining did you see to Arriva when they were hit with driver shortages. Go North East are at least telling people there's gonna be service cancellations. Is any other services doing this. (Possibly not thay I've seen) yet go North East are hit with complain left right and centre.
I mean Go North East this year alone have been hit by the media a ton of times. (Pay to drivers, Cancel of service, Service changes) you name it
(12 Oct 2021, 10:09 am)Train8261 But the public don't seem to understand. They want it handed to them on a silver plate. I swear half of them have ethier forgotten or just breeze past that we had a pandemic
(12 Oct 2021, 10:09 am)Train8261 But the public don't seem to understand. They want it handed to them on a silver plate. I swear half of them have ethier forgotten or just breeze past that we had a pandemic
Seems a bit of a pathetic, over-egged example for the media to have latached onto. The girl's bus was 19 minutes late in the morning peak. Hardly unheard of, even without pandemic, for peak services to experience delays like this. Maybe if they made the headline "Bus 19 mins late" it would be clearer what a non-news story this is, other than for this individual.
That's not to say there isn't an issue; just lazy reporting by the Chronicle picking such a weak example rather than highlighting any of the many examples of consecutive journey cancellations or of last runs not operating (this far into the crisis, there should be management action in place to prevent both such occurrences).
(12 Oct 2021, 5:28 pm)stagecoachbusdepot Seems a bit of a pathetic, over-egged example for the media to have latached onto. The girl's bus was 19 minutes late in the morning peak. Hardly unheard of, even without pandemic, for peak services to experience delays like this. Maybe if they made the headline "Bus 19 mins late" it would be clearer what a non-news story this is, other than for this individual.
That's not to say there isn't an issue; just lazy reporting by the Chronicle picking such a weak example rather than highlighting any of the many examples of consecutive journey cancellations or of last runs not operating (this far into the crisis, there should be management action in place to prevent both such occurrences).
(12 Oct 2021, 5:28 pm)stagecoachbusdepot Seems a bit of a pathetic, over-egged example for the media to have latached onto. The girl's bus was 19 minutes late in the morning peak. Hardly unheard of, even without pandemic, for peak services to experience delays like this. Maybe if they made the headline "Bus 19 mins late" it would be clearer what a non-news story this is, other than for this individual.
That's not to say there isn't an issue; just lazy reporting by the Chronicle picking such a weak example rather than highlighting any of the many examples of consecutive journey cancellations or of last runs not operating (this far into the crisis, there should be management action in place to prevent both such occurrences).
(12 Oct 2021, 5:56 pm)Keeiajs I read that article, and I don't have the words to sum up the idiocy, ignorant factors.
(12 Oct 2021, 5:56 pm)Keeiajs I read that article, and I don't have the words to sum up the idiocy, ignorant factors.
(12 Oct 2021, 7:09 pm)DeltaMan I don't agree. The customer has every right complain if the service is not being provided. You only have to pass through the Galleries during the day to see the numbers of buses parked up there. It's not good!Yeah everyone has the right to complain, but it is ignorance not looking at the website I understand Arriva/SC when they don't tell you the services. But when they are on the website, and for a bus to be late through peak times is not common especially with the 50 going on the A19 during rush hour aswell. GNE offer somewhere to look to see your services, and the ignorance in this current climate with DVLA.
(12 Oct 2021, 7:09 pm)DeltaMan I don't agree. The customer has every right complain if the service is not being provided. You only have to pass through the Galleries during the day to see the numbers of buses parked up there. It's not good!Yeah everyone has the right to complain, but it is ignorance not looking at the website I understand Arriva/SC when they don't tell you the services. But when they are on the website, and for a bus to be late through peak times is not common especially with the 50 going on the A19 during rush hour aswell. GNE offer somewhere to look to see your services, and the ignorance in this current climate with DVLA.
If you really want picture of how bad this situation actually is, I seen 5 Angel Streetdecks parked up in Eldon Square at 8am this morning 2 of which were in service on an inbound and outbound journey with other 3 not in service having run light from the depot into Newcastle to start service from there as past me on my way into town from Low Fell.
For the length time some of those vehicles sat there you could potentially of operated 3 journeys from Chester-Le-Street to Newcastle and what is more interesting the fact these journey's from starting from Newcastle this morning were not even documented on journey cancellation page on the Go North East website, infact there was no documented cancellations at all for the 21 today so what happened one wonders.
(12 Oct 2021, 11:06 am)Storx Not trying to be funny but GNE deserve criticism for some of the cancellations today. It's all good putting posts out but when they're complete stupid decisions then they deserve it.Cancelling last buses should be an absolute no no with passengers either given alternative means or common section of route covered by another service with unique parts picked up further down the line.
The 17:35 and 18:05 X5/X15 being the stand out silly cancellations. It's all good saying look online and having time but if I worked 9.15am - 5.15pm I'd be extremely pissed off that the next to Lanchester is 19:05 or if I'm going direct to Shotley Bridge there isn't a service at all.
I'd be well in truly complaining and if I could drive I'd be straight in the car the day after. I feel sorry for whoever has to drive 19:05 bus. Yet the X45/X46 and 16/16A has barely any cancellations when they're every 15/30 minutes. That's poor planning imo.
Special mention for the 23:00 X1 and 19:40 47A for being cancelled being the last buses of the night again aswell for part of the route.
(12 Oct 2021, 11:06 am)Storx Not trying to be funny but GNE deserve criticism for some of the cancellations today. It's all good putting posts out but when they're complete stupid decisions then they deserve it.Cancelling last buses should be an absolute no no with passengers either given alternative means or common section of route covered by another service with unique parts picked up further down the line.
The 17:35 and 18:05 X5/X15 being the stand out silly cancellations. It's all good saying look online and having time but if I worked 9.15am - 5.15pm I'd be extremely pissed off that the next to Lanchester is 19:05 or if I'm going direct to Shotley Bridge there isn't a service at all.
I'd be well in truly complaining and if I could drive I'd be straight in the car the day after. I feel sorry for whoever has to drive 19:05 bus. Yet the X45/X46 and 16/16A has barely any cancellations when they're every 15/30 minutes. That's poor planning imo.
Special mention for the 23:00 X1 and 19:40 47A for being cancelled being the last buses of the night again aswell for part of the route.
(12 Oct 2021, 11:56 pm)L469 YVK Cancelling last buses should be an absolute no no with passengers either given alternative means or common section of route covered by another service with unique parts picked up further down the line.Why is it that they seem to be happy to divert the X9/X10 to cover both routes if one gets cancelled, but not any other route?
(12 Oct 2021, 11:56 pm)L469 YVK Cancelling last buses should be an absolute no no with passengers either given alternative means or common section of route covered by another service with unique parts picked up further down the line.Why is it that they seem to be happy to divert the X9/X10 to cover both routes if one gets cancelled, but not any other route?
I've said before and I will say it again. First buses through to 10amish and from 4pm to last buses should run fully 100%. During the day cut down on high frequency routes but not routes that run every 30 mins.
Should last bus be cut a taxi should be provided.
(13 Oct 2021, 6:52 am)streetdeckfan Why is it that they seem to be happy to divert the X9/X10 to cover both routes if one gets cancelled, but not any other route?I'd have thought that it's because operationally it's the easiest route to do that on out of all the services GNE run. They can probably divert the route to cover both the x9 and X10 stops and still stay pretty much to timetable, which I'm not sure they'd be able to do on other services.
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(13 Oct 2021, 6:52 am)streetdeckfan Why is it that they seem to be happy to divert the X9/X10 to cover both routes if one gets cancelled, but not any other route?I'd have thought that it's because operationally it's the easiest route to do that on out of all the services GNE run. They can probably divert the route to cover both the x9 and X10 stops and still stay pretty much to timetable, which I'm not sure they'd be able to do on other services.
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Possible to do with the (I think) X9/X10 are the only routes that follow the exact same route but come of at different points.
The X10 covers the X9 route on evening and Sundays anyway so it's easier for GNE to withdraw the X9 (if needed) and shove the X10 to serve both routes.
I can't say the same thing for different routes. Maybe the 12/12A
(14 Oct 2021, 9:31 pm)Wybus GNE should be praised for the way they are not just putting these daily lists online but are printing them out and displaying them at the various bus stations, and not just at the main ones, there were even lists stuck up today in Hexham and Consett Bus Stations
(14 Oct 2021, 9:31 pm)Wybus GNE should be praised for the way they are not just putting these daily lists online but are printing them out and displaying them at the various bus stations, and not just at the main ones, there were even lists stuck up today in Hexham and Consett Bus Stations
(14 Oct 2021, 9:31 pm)Wybus GNE should be praised for the way they are not just putting these daily lists online but are printing them out and displaying them at the various bus stations, and not just at the main ones, there were even lists stuck up today in Hexham and Consett Bus StationsAnd Arriva are barely getting any stick, just their buses don't show up nothing else.
(14 Oct 2021, 9:31 pm)Wybus GNE should be praised for the way they are not just putting these daily lists online but are printing them out and displaying them at the various bus stations, and not just at the main ones, there were even lists stuck up today in Hexham and Consett Bus StationsAnd Arriva are barely getting any stick, just their buses don't show up nothing else.
(14 Oct 2021, 10:44 pm)Keeiajs And Arriva are barely getting any stick, just their buses don't show up nothing else.Arriva show cancellation and delays in real time on the app, often a few hours in advance which is very handy. And, for me, preferable over the list of services that GNE have as I often go out on a whim and can't be arsed to search the website for the list
(14 Oct 2021, 10:44 pm)Keeiajs And Arriva are barely getting any stick, just their buses don't show up nothing else.Arriva show cancellation and delays in real time on the app, often a few hours in advance which is very handy. And, for me, preferable over the list of services that GNE have as I often go out on a whim and can't be arsed to search the website for the list
