(05 Aug 2022, 12:46 pm)streetdeckfan wrote It's never stopped them before!Wonder if those sorts of behaviours are part of the reason staff attrition is so high and passengers are falling away in droves?
I remember when they closed Crook depot, they were sending drivers down to Bishop that didn't have a clue where to go because they hadn't learned the route yet! I remember one of them saying they'd only ever been to Bishop once before and they were just following a map they had printed out.
I lost count of the amount of times they stopped and asked passengers which way to go, or just going the wrong way completely
(05 Aug 2022, 1:09 pm)Andreos1 wrote Wonder if those sorts of behaviours are part of the reason staff attrition is so high and passengers are falling away in droves?
It's hardly going to inspire much confidence is it?
(05 Aug 2022, 1:25 pm)col87 wrote An easy way to get drivers sorted at other depots is either buy a sat nav type system with the route fully programmed in ( I know it’s a game and hardy to do in reality but the bus simulator games have exactly that and am fairly sure technology exists if you can track a bus off bus times ) or hire drivers across multiple depots where they split there time. Stagecoach seem to manage it with certain drivers across Hartlepool Stockton and Newcastle so no reason Go North East couldn’t do it.
(05 Aug 2022, 5:37 pm)Malarkey wrote Couriers would be the best example to use, I used to work for DPD a few years back and they had a system built into a drivers sat nav that set the route the driver would take in order to deliver parcels in the most efficient/eco friendly manner, can't see why something like this could not be implemented technology wise on a Bus in order to aid a driver particularly in there first weeks on the road whilst still in the learning phase.
(05 Aug 2022, 12:46 pm)streetdeckfan wrote It's never stopped them before!
I remember when they closed Crook depot, they were sending drivers down to Bishop that didn't have a clue where to go because they hadn't learned the route yet! I remember one of them saying they'd only ever been to Bishop once before and they were just following a map they had printed out.
I lost count of the amount of times they stopped and asked passengers which way to go, or just going the wrong way completely
(08 Aug 2022, 12:04 pm)R852 PRG wrote Prior to Crook closing and the X21 moving to Chester, Chester operated the X21 to Bishop Auckland on Sundays, interworking with the 21 at Durham. Through fares available. New drivers (and, by extension, former unit 2 drivers when the two main rotas were amalgamated in 2014) should have been route-learned to account for this but it is possible that some rarely worked any such duties prior to Crook's closure. Some former unit 1 drivers at Chester would have worked the route to Bishop during the Pink Angel days.
Your anecdote reminded me of an occasion one Saturday not long after the 8/78 changed to Streetlites where an old hand on the 4-day rota asked me to go to Stanley and back with him on the 8 to keep him right. At the time, on a sixteen line rota, there was just a single duty where they covered the Stanley end of the 8 route, it being on a Saturday that they would each encounter once every sixteen weeks.