(19 Oct 2021, 3:32 pm)Dan wrote I'm not sure it was ever deemed operationally acceptable.

It was published, but the cancellations are published at a certain time every day, reviewed again the following morning, and work continues right until the moment the journey is cancelled, to get it covered. Consecutive journeys, and first/last buses, still remain the utmost priority to cover - but the nature of how duties are compiled and allocated, as well as restrictions around driving time and breaks, mean it's really not as easy as taking a driver off one shift and putting them onto another.

There is a huge amount of resource that goes into compiling this list, on a daily basis including weekends - whilst I agree that more could, and should, be done to offer alternatives, I don't think it'd be quite as easy as has been suggested in the past.

Obviously diverting services is another beast completely, and comes with its own complications, which is why it's not done very often other than on the X9/X10.

I don't doubt for one minute that they're the priority to cover, and that everything goes into ensuring they're covered, but I do think that the question of providing alternatives along with the list comes down to a cost vs benefit scenario. Just about anything in business is possible, if you're willing to pay for it.

As a customer, I'd say there's a huge benefit in ensuring someone is tasked to create a resource which can be used by control (or whoever is compiling the list), with some predefined alternatives that can be provided along with the cancellations. I'd also say there was a benefit in being able to hide cancelled trips from the app and journey planners. If I was running the business however, I might think that the cost of producing that information, or what the developers want for a code change, outweighs any benefit to the customer. I get that, and ultimately someone has to make that decision.

I also get that diverting a service comes with it's own complications, but in exceptional circumstances, I feel there should always be a plan in place. We've seen last buses of service cancelled late at night lately, which isn't exactly encouraging to those wanting to use public transport, and is potentially leaving vulnerable people stranded. I appreciate that working practices or the inflexibility cannot be changed with the click of someone's fingers, but I'd hope at least operators would want to address this when reviewing how the labour shortage is handled. It's not about pointing fingers and blaming, but I'd hope operators, as a business, would want to learn and improve.