(30 Jan 2021, 9:05 am)RobinHood wrote This paragraph is a real kick in the teeth to the guys working at Arriva in the commercial and schedules team, not to mention the operations team locally. Effectively suggesting that they acted too late suggests a sense to tardiness or lack of planning - however I know this is far from reality as I know the people doing that work.

The Operations team cannot run a bus without a driver. If drivers are being told to self isolate, they will do that that. The extent of services being pulled is the extent of drivers not available. It isn't a choice, its a requirement. Newcastle went from good to bad within 24 hours last weekend, absolutely nobody could have planned for that.

For perspective on the actual planning side of things, Arriva have 2 Network Managers (yes, just two!) for the entire network between Scarborough and Berwick. That's 2 people to basically replan every service and arrange headways and frequencies accordingly to get something sensible (these 2 people plan the changes, input the changes manually, register the changes, update the fare tables, create the local information, update destination screens and update NSA systems etc - it all runs through this tiny team). There are then another 2 people who will schedule the work and create the duties and rotas for each of the seven depots. In the background, these are also the same people are negotiating service levels with local authority leads (just 9 different authorities to have the same discussions with) and trade union reps internally across seven depots, but two different sets of pay schemes and therefore scheduling agreements to adhere to. It's a difficult job too juggle all of that normally, with a team that small.

Again, you don't know the situation or the politics that are in place - varying significantly between companies, internally. A view is simply made based on the output (or perceived lack of), which is far from reality and why I'm defending these people whom I know most of personally.

One thing I will agree on however, although not directly implied, is that Arriva have literally squeezed their local management and support functions to the bare minimum over the past 18 months and it shows when you compare reaction times now. I absolutely do not agree when it is suggested that Arriva simply haven't bothered to respond or acted too late. These guys are working 60 odd hour weeks to make up the difference compared to GNE and Stagecoach who have retained bigger local teams as part of their business plan and have the ability to repurpose very quickly.

Go North East’s commercial team isn’t much bigger (their entire network is planned by one person, not two, but there is a greater resource for the physical scheduling of duties and rotas) - and they too had to undertake a completely fresh set of duties, just like Arriva, but managed to implement these two weeks ago. Not only this but have managed to communicate these revised timetables better than most operators in the country, with updated timetables available on the company’s website, mobile and app and in print (available on all buses), as well as re-allocating the fleet to ensure upgraded capacity is provided where it is expected to be required.

There is a lot of work involved in this, yes, and nobody is suggesting laziness or tardiness on Arriva’s part. 60+ hour weeks, with everything past the bog standard working week being done as a gesture of goodwill from employees in this department, has become the norm since March last year.

It’s not a contest but it cannot be denied that Go North East did respond much more quickly than Arriva, and arguably this was best for customers, as there aren’t any journeys being cancelled at short notice due to a lack of drivers being available. It goes without saying that if Arriva had more resource, then they could be doing more for their passengers.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk