"Spare" drivers

[johntea]

I was on a Manchester Airport - Redcar Central service yesterday which got to Manchester Victoria where it then stayed for 30 - 45 minutes as the onwards driver had apparently been delayed on his previous service and then had to taxi across from Piccadilly to Victoria!

Would it not have been a possibility for a "spare" driver to take over the service instead to avoid such a delay? Would the original driver from Manchester Airport only have route knowledge to Victoria?

Im perhaps sounding simplistic just got me thinking about what options are available in such scenarios as I imagine it resulted in quite a few missed connections for passengers yesterday!

 

[175001]

TPE don't have a traincrew depot at Victoria, so they won't have spare drivers sat at Vic.

 

[craigybagel]

If it would have been possible, they probably would have done it. Resource staff do work pretty hard to keep the job going and shuffle staff around where possible, but pretty much every TOC is short staffed at the moment so the chances of having an available spare driver aren't as high as they might have been a few years ago.

 

[Horizon22]

If a spare was available then it would probably have been arranged. Each TOC, each depot and each day will be different in terms of how many spares are available (if indeed there are any) and even then spare resources may well have been utilised already.

 

[whoosh]

It's actually fairly rare to remain 'spare'. When you are spare on the roster you can be given an uncovered turn of duty that starts +/-2or 3 hours (depending on company - some are even more flexible!) either side of your spare start time.

If you remain spare, then you can be sent to cover part of a job for late running etc. But it's more likely everyone 'spare' wasn't actually spare anymore and were allocated to turns of duty.

 

[dk1]

Do you mean more in the way of a booked standby driver? We have a standby driver on early & late shift but once they are used they are used. Spare drivers can be all over the place if at all. You might have say 6 starting between 05:30 & 07:10 then none on lates & say 4 starting between 19:45 & 20:30. It all depends on who’s where in the roster. There is much less chance of any spare crews on Sundays if it’s not in the working week as everything is overtime.

 

[choochoochoo]

Unless there is a committed rest day work agreement, you're not going to have spare drivers once those that were originally rostered as spare/standby have been used.

TOCs don't like the idea of paying overtime for drivers to sit spare. Even though I'm sure they'd save more in fines for cancellations/delays than they'd have to pay the driver.

 

[Watershed]

I was on a Manchester Airport - Redcar Central service yesterday which got to Manchester Victoria where it then stayed for 30 - 45 minutes as the onwards driver had apparently been delayed on his previous service and then had to taxi across from Piccadilly to Victoria!

Yes, the onwards driver was delayed as their pass ride from Liverpool to Manchester was diverted via Warrington into Piccadilly. This, in turn, was due to a Northern unit tripping the OLE, and then having a sit down at Rainhill.

Would it not have been a possibility for a "spare" driver to take over the service instead to avoid such a delay?

In theory, yes. However the nearest depot is at Piccadilly, so it would have taken at least 20 or so minutes for them to get to Victoria once the decision had been made to substitute the original driver. In other words, probably not a great time saving.

Would the original driver from Manchester Airport only have route knowledge to Victoria?

They would have had the route knowledge. It's a rather unfortunate one as the MIA-MCV driver was due to pass to Liverpool, and the MCV-onwards driver was passing from Liverpool. So with the benefit of hindsight it might have been better to keep the original driver on, and to swap the two drivers' work around. This would still have caused some delay, but less than ultimately happened. Hindsight is 20/20!

Im perhaps sounding simplistic just got me thinking about what options are available in such scenarios as I imagine it resulted in quite a few missed connections for passengers yesterday!

Other than swapping work around as above, or having depots at every relieving location, I don't think this was an avoidable delay.

 

[johntea]

Very interesting, thanks!

I should point out I'm not blaming anyone for the disruption I was just curious about the 'behind the scenes'! I was very impressed in fact by the TPE guard who kept everyone updated on the state of play and heavily promoted delay repay (also nice to see the TPE delay repay form seems to be able to pick up your ticket details even with a paper ticket just by entering the ticket number rather than faffing about with taking a photo)

 

[Deafdoggie]

The world of buses is, of course, different. But we find you either have all your spare drivers sitting spare, or they are all out and you need more! It's just the nature of the beast unfortunately.
In the ideal world, breaks and relief are where there is a depot, but that can create other issues.

 

[newtownmgr]

Can’t remember the last time i sat spare. Or even standby. We are 20+ drivers short in the links, plus on occasion covering other depots work as well. Even Standby turns on a Sunday usually end up covering work these days. A lot of companies & depots are in the same situation as covid stopped training & recruitment.
Not always easy just to swap a drivers work content over as even drivers within the same depot may well have different route & traction knowledge. Also it’s up to the driver to agree to come off his turn in
many cases or agree to do overtime.

 

[172007]

Can’t remember the last time i sat spare. Or even standby. We are 20+ drivers short in the links, plus on occasion covering other depots work as well. Even Standby turns on a Sunday usually end up covering work these days. A lot of companies & depots are in the same situation as covid stopped training & recruitment.
Not always easy just to swap a drivers work content over as even drivers within the same depot may well have different route & traction knowledge. Also it’s up to the driver to agree to come off his turn in
many cases or agree to do overtime.

Yep, same here. We did have a Saturday a few month ago with a few Spares which was surprising. Many older drivers looked at their retirement figures who would not have if Covid hadn't struck and went, recruitment stopped. Now we have a backlog of annual leave as many took the absolute minimum last year to roll to this year leading to last year's annual leave being used until March and then booked all the annual leave now when restrictions are gone. Trainees have a ton of annual leave when qualified to use. Drivers have done so much over time we are all tired of it. German Market about to start in Brum so it's a perfect storm.