What a disaster it has been for buses running on the X93/X94 yesterday. Arriva have been completely incompetent at delivering their service on these routes for quite a lengthy period now. Not their fault for the unfortunate situation they are dealing with now, although could have prepared for the day so much differently.

Over two hours without a bus to Scarborough, with buses diverted to Robin Hoods Bay or left parked up in the bus station, so much that every bus stop had a bus parked on it, with the X4 for Middlesbrough at one stage having to board passengers further up the road outside of a couple of buildings, holding traffic back with it too.

After the 12:36 X93 left to Scarborough, there was no other buses until 15:06 on the X94 for Scarborough, in that time Pulsar 1440 managed to run to Scarborough & back. They were running buses at random to Robin Hoods Bay, starting at 36 mins past, then reverting to 06 mins past, very obvious nothing was organised, nobody knew what was happening, not helped by the fact there was no notices of cancellations, nor could any information be found on the Arriva website or social platforms about the current situation.

Then without warning they stopped all buses to Robin Hood's Bay after 16:00, whilst many people had ventured down, under the impression they could travel back on the bus. I'm sure there would have many taxis getting booked by people to get themselves back to Whitby.

The entire planning of the service delivery was just in tatters, to add insult to injury the busier boards that were running through to Scarborough and Middlesbrough on X93s that weren't cancelled, included two single deckers, which when there are buses missing from the route is not useful at all, especially given there was three Double Deckers just parked up for hours in Whitby Bus Station just to make matters worse.

Understandable some of the buses missing were due to driver shortages, although the impact could have been reduced with a little bit more careful planning, especially given the fact the X94 wasn't properly running until after 15:00. If they had focused on running all the X93s to Scarborough at a 60 minute frequency & hourly shuttle bus to RHB, could have averted some of the chaos.

Arriva had a person in Whitby, although was quite uninformed himself with the information he had been given by higher powers, just relaying "I'm struggling to track the buses, the buses are everywhere & I'm not sure when the next bus will be, there should be one at 15:30 & all I can do is apologise." I did feel quite bad at one stage, as many people had questions for him, which some he just could not answer, although the impact on the ground could be felt much more than someone just logging onto a computer & seeing buses missing over a two hour gap.

I accept unforseen circumstances have caused this current situation, although as pointed out above, how things operated today should really have been thought out beforehand. For instance, if they knew they'd be leaving huge gaps & keeping the single deckers on the busier X93 boards, whilst standing the entire X94, with vehicles surplus to requirements for several hours, should have allocated the smaller vehicles to the boards that were curtailed or swapped them round. Then X93s just going missing, with one 'X94' going to Robin Hood's Bay but displaying X93 everytime it left, but running at the X94s timetable was causing quite a bit of confusion for near enough everybody.

Some things which could have made the situation so much easier:

- Strict Timetable, with one bus to RHB at 06 past as an X94, with Scarborough buses at 36 mins past as an X93, opposed to mixing it around & just running blind trying to run what they could & end up leaving huge gaps as a result. Also with exact times they'd be running to RHB for those who may have went to Whitby for the shops & those who went down to RHB.

- Posters up at Whitby Bus Station, with information of which buses were going to Robin Hood's Bay & which ones to Scarborough, including the times. Also to include cancellations, similar to what Nexus supply at Haymarket when Arriva services have previously been pre-cancelled on the day.

- Information online, with a clear format of what services are operating to where, including timetables of what would be running. I'm sure it wouldn't have been too hard to get somebody to put a temporary timetable together or just a list of what buses would be running, once they knew which shifts were covered...

- Single Deckers swapped for Double Deckers on the full length X93s once the services started getting cancelled.

I hope there can be a solution found for NYCC to safely reopen the road over the Moors & ensure those living along the route can regain their access to the service, aswell as for those returning to work & school & those who are planning holiday breaks etc. I will give Arriva credit for atleast trying to keep services operating in some way, but their running blind approach, did certainly backfire, demonstrated with the queues of passengers left & buses just getting curtailed throughout the day, with nobody, including staff with no idea what was going where...