Is it not the case that there have been slightly more driver availability problems at the start of Tranche 2 than was the case at the start of Tranche 1?
Yes and no. Tranche 1 still has massive driver shortage issues but with the aid of two driver agency’s is heavily propped up with drivers from all over the country. Something I only found out yesterday is that there is a clause in the contracts between TFGM and operators that says agency drivers mustn’t be used and that all staff should be employed directly, but this was relaxed for Tranche 1 because TFGM needed GNW to operate the 163 earlier because diamond pulled off it.
Operators in tranche 2 and 3 will not be able to use agency drivers.
The other issue with tranche 2 is that a great deal of work has been shifted from queens road to Oldham, but with First taking quite a lot of Oldham drivers with them to Rochdale it’s left a huge hole. There’s now more drivers being seconded in from other depots and I believe Middleton and queens are running some boards on the 17/18 this week.
Would this situation have been any different if the Bee Network had not come into being and buses were operated by the bus companies who ran these services?
Yes course it would. Oldham depot was pretty much fully staffed before the Tranche 2 launch.
It’s basically a domino effect.
Some Rosso drivers at Rochdale have stayed with Transdev, likewise First have taken around 40% of its drivers from Oldham to Rochdale along with most of its allocators and engineers so your left with a huge hole at Oldham. Add to that the fact TFGM have moved the 17/18 to Oldham despite not having the drivers to run it. It’s a mess.
The only saving grace is the fact stagecoach have lost most of the Tranche 3 depots so it’s expected many drivers from Ashton, Hyde road and Sharston will want to remain with stagecoach and look at transferring to Oldham but in the short term it’s not going to get any better.
Ok so here's something, not for
@johncrossley to answer per se but open to everyone. Roger French was particularly acerbic about Bee Network and the congestion busting properties of the paint.
I wouldn't be so provocative so here's the question... There's been no change in terms of bus priority so why has punctuality improved?
Is it that times have been revised to create more margin (and incurring more resources?) and/or
Is it that the penalty/reward regime is that it's more cost effective to have more resources?
Genuine open question
From a drivers point of view, and you raise a very very good question NO! Nothing has changed.
In fact the depot I work at which is T2 suffered greatly with unrealistic running times before bee network took over last month, we were all hoping running times would be made more realistic and it would help greatly but what I’ve actually found is we are running on exactly the same times as previously. The odd timing point has been changed but when you look at the departure times and the arrival times it’s a mirror image of before 24th March.
