(Yesterday, 11:07 am)Storx wrote There's no excuse for not having enough staff to run a service - at all.
There's a difference between relying on it to cover short term issues (which isn't an issue - requiring an extra board due to issues out of their control being another reason) and needing overtime to run the service since you've not got enough drivers (big issue). Stockton and Whitby both being very much in the second camp right now and they're not the ones either as it's been blighting GoNorthEast and Stagecoach aswell.
There's a huge difference between having the numbers on paper, and dealing with day to day service though.
The use of overtime in this industry will be a permanent thing. Utilised more frequently recently, maybe, to cover for staff shortages - but it has always and will always be needed.
For example, you'll have holiday blocks at a depot where there are huge chunks of drivers off for multiple weeks at a time. The set-up of these blocks will differ between companies, and even between depots within a company, but as a simplistic example you could have 'summer' and 'winter' blocks which are each 6 months. There are some 'spare' drivers, which should be enough to cover the shifts when the drivers from each individual block are off, but then any other absence will need to be covered by overtime. If your spare percentage is even slightly lower than it should be (which it likely will be in most instances!) - then again overtime will need to be used.
Add in drivers having a very short notice period, and the training time for a new one, and one resignation can create a gap in coverage for at least a month (even once trained and holding a licence, a new driver will be buddied up for an initial period too). Scale that up and it should be very easy to see how overtime is required to the level which it is.
It's similar in other industries, I've worked across a few where overtime was relied upon. However, given the nature of those industries, to the outside it would be significantly less obvious to tell if the overtime wasn't happening. Ultimately with a bus, if even one shift is missing then that is displayed clearly to anyone wishing to use the service. If, for example, there's one less person working in hospitality then the service might be a bit slower - but you're still getting your food.