Train company NOT booking rail replacement buses

[AdamWW]

- How quickly was this to be arranged? It obviously wasn't an emergency, but at what notice was it added to the calendar?

Isn't non emergency engineering work normally planned many months ahead?

Questions that spring immediately to mind (as I don't know the area):

Actually the question that comes to my mind is whether there is any oversight as to whether Southern really did their best or whether they could have provided buses if they'd tried harder (or planned earlier).

It's obviously not much good providing two or three coaches from Wales with SatNavs and route diagrams (plus overnight costs) if what the service actually needs is a pair of double-deckers to meet every departure to handle the numbers.

Maybe. I've seen annoucements (not Southern) that a limited road replacement service would run that was intended for people who absolutely needed to travel and that everyone else should stay away.

At least we have SatNavs now. In the past I've ended up standing at the front of a replacement bus navigating.

 

[RJ]

Most rail replacement is not done by 'local bus' operators but by coach firms or bus operators who otherwise do schools. Theres also plenty of operators who are happy to travel. Cymru Coaches in Swansea often tend to go and work in Cambridge and Peterborough because they are paid money which makes that journey worth their while. It's also worth noting that some operators travel literally anywhere and make it work. First Choice of Birmingham were recently seen doing Newcastle Upon Tyne rail replacement. Cardiff has has A2B Travel from Cambridge and Angies Tours from Lowestoft turn up. If you pay up, you will get firms from all over.

It's true - a couple of weeks ago I did Royston to Cambridge, St Pancras to St Albans and Bromley South to Sevenoaks over the course of one weekend and I intentionally leave resource spare on weekends to cover rail replacement at short notice. Drivers hours permitting (usually facilitated with a pleasant dead run on a Friday evening and Monday morning), nowhere in the South East is too far.

 

[Titfield]

A safe number? Coaches are generally legally restricted to passengers = seats, so there's not an unsafe number as such any more than there is for taxis.

When vehicles are type approved the approval states how many passengers can be carried (seats) and how many standees (standing passengers) can be carried (if any).

Typically coaches are not approved for standees (higher speeds, no grab rails) but buses are (lower speeds, grab rails, possibly in the buggy space).


If rail replacement work is planned in advance then there is a good chance vehicles and drivers can be made available because self evidently has time to make the arrangements - ensure that drivers are rostered in accordance with drivers hours regs etc, switch days off where permitted etc etc. If rail replacement is short notice it can be very difficult because changing drivers days off at virtually no notice is often impossible. Likewise even if a driver can drive legally he / she may not be able to work too late that day because of the minimum rest requirement for work the next day.

 

[duncombec]

A safe number? Coaches are generally legally restricted to passengers = seats, so there's not an unsafe number as such any more than there is for taxis.

A "safe" number of vehicles to take the passenger load as a whole with limited issues, not the numbers of passengers per vehicle (which I'm well aware of, being a regular user of buses and coaches). I recall threads on here about limited rail replacement buses on South Western at times, for example, and staff being harangued because there were so few to handle the passenger load of the "wing and prayer" operation.

If I were a rail replacement organiser, in a hypothetical situation needing 30 buses and I could only book 5 for whatever reason, I'd question whether it was worth the hassle for staff to deal with one bus every five trains that might not be able to take everybody, or just say "none".

 

[Bletchleyite]

If rail replacement work is planned in advance then there is a good chance vehicles and drivers can be made available because self evidently has time to make the arrangements - ensure that drivers are rostered in accordance with drivers hours regs etc, switch days off where permitted etc etc. If rail replacement is short notice it can be very difficult because changing drivers days off at virtually no notice is often impossible. Likewise even if a driver can drive legally he / she may not be able to work too late that day because of the minimum rest requirement for work the next day.

It can certainly be difficult. But it depends on how many phone calls your agency is willing to make.

Given that they simply went out to the rank and flagged down Hackney carriages it's clear someone dropped a proverbial here and didn't start ringing round coach companies until way too late*. It hasn't been the norm for Preston to use Hackney carriages for a long time - the last time I had one from there was in the mid 1990s when it was the norm to give a taxi if a missed connection onto an infrequent service like Preston-Ormskirk would result in a delay over an hour (how things have changed!). I have been in this exact situation on the evening of Lamington as mentioned above (there were coaches, but not enough for everyone) and a private hire car was used, which I suppose at least was more comfortable for a long trip than a Hackney carriage and had a proper boot for the bags to go in!

* It would probably have made sense to start trying to get standby coaches as soon as the problem became apparent, i.e. the cancellation was decided upon. It wouldn't be hard to work out that the later train would likely not have capacity over two hours before it arrived at Preston - with multiple cancellations it would likely have been full and standing out of Euston, let alone further up.

A "safe" number of vehicles to take the passenger load as a whole with limited issues, not the numbers of passengers per vehicle (which I'm well aware of, being a regular user of buses and coaches). I recall threads on here about limited rail replacement buses on South Western at times, for example, and staff being harangued because there were so few to handle the passenger load of the "wing and prayer" operation.

If I were a rail replacement organiser, in a hypothetical situation needing 30 buses and I could only book 5 for whatever reason, I'd question whether it was worth the hassle for staff to deal with one bus every five trains that might not be able to take everybody, or just say "none".

This would be true if taxis weren't an option, but as they clearly were, one coach would reduce the number of taxis needed by about 10.

 

[duncombec]

Given that they simply went out to the rank and flagged down Hackney carriages it's clear someone dropped a proverbial here and didn't start ringing round coach companies until way too late*. It hasn't been the norm for Preston to use Hackney carriages for a long time - the last time I had one from there was in the mid 1990s when it was the norm to give a taxi if a missed connection onto an infrequent service like Preston-Ormskirk would result in a delay over an hour (how things have changed!). I have been in this exact situation on the evening of Lamington as mentioned above (there were coaches, but not enough for everyone) and a private hire car was used, which I suppose at least was more comfortable for a long trip than a Hackney carriage and had a proper boot for the bags to go in!

* It would probably have made sense to start trying to get standby coaches as soon as the problem became apparent, i.e. the cancellation was decided upon. It wouldn't be hard to work out that the later train would likely not have capacity over two hours before it arrived at Preston - with multiple cancellations it would likely have been full and standing out of Euston, let alone further up.


This would be true if taxis weren't an option, but as they clearly were, one coach would reduce the number of taxis needed by about 10.

This thread is about planned work between Barnham - Havant, though! I'm not sure how many taxis are freely available at either of those locations to make that an option either.

 

[Bletchleyite]

This thread is about planned work between Barnham - Havant, though! I'm not sure how many taxis are freely available at either of those locations to make that an option either.

Sorry, got it confused with that other one about Preston.

Though depending on how much notice you have of disruption, asking someone at Victoria to go and ask a load if they'll do it would get some. And I'm sure there are plenty in Portsmouth and Southampton too.

 

[MotCO]

It seems to me as though bus companies do not have the drivers but may have the right vehicles, and coach companies may have the drivers but not the right vehicles. Could the coach company drivers drive the available buses, or is that too simple?

 

[RJ]

It seems to me as though bus companies do not have the drivers but may have the right vehicles, and coach companies may have the drivers but not the right vehicles. Could the coach company drivers drive the available buses, or is that too simple?

Every operator's situation is different. I run buses and don't have a driver shortage. Quite the contrary, there are drivers who make themselves available to work as many hours as the regulations will allow.

The difficulty with resourcing rail replacement is the fluctuating nature of demand. The only operators who will dedicate resource to it are those who are being paid enough to. Most operators will be acutely aware that attempting to do so will result in them losing money, so much of the supply will be made up of "spare" resource - vehicles which are being paid for by other contracts. There isn't always enough spare resource to cover everything in a particular area.

To a large extent this can be mitigated by the TOCs by working out which operators are prepared to travel to the work, communicating with them and agreeing a rate that works for both sides. If it does then most of the time the resource.

 

[AdamWW]

Actually the question that comes to my mind is whether there is any oversight as to whether Southern really did their best or whether they could have provided buses if they'd tried harder (or planned earlier).

Another question that comes to mind is whether there is any penalty to a TOC for not providing replacement buses.

If not, then there may be little incentive to go the extra mile to work something out.

 

[Horizon22]

Well yes but this is a thread about Southern failing to provide buses for engineering work which would have been planned many months in advance so I don't see the relevance.

Was it a failure to provide, or (what I consider to be more likely) multiple attempts had been made to source which had been unsuccessful and/or operators were no longer to commit?

I assume Avanti use First Travel Solutions? Do they have a limited set of regular contractors, or will they literally phone round anyone? If not the latter then they should. We could do with something of the sort of coverage of Fraser Eagle.

First Travel Solutions does have a limited set to my knowledge, but at the same time “limited” is still quite substantial as long as they’ve been approved.

That being said, they still struggle with shortages if the request is at the wrong time / date. Getting buses around 1400-1800 is almost impossible due to the school run as an example.

 

[AdamWW]

Was it a failure to provide, or (what I consider to be more likely) multiple attempts had been made to source which had been unsuccessful and/or operators were no longer to commit?

I don't undertand the distinction.

They should have provided buses. They failed to do so.

Failure doesn't necessarily imply blame.

 

[Horizon22]

I don't undertand the distinction.

They should have provided buses. They failed to do so.

Failure doesn't necessarily imply blame.

Okay there was a failure under those terms. The original post says “no buses were booked”. Your post reads to more like Southern didn’t try hard enough, so I think there is a distinction even if it’s subtle.

How as a train company would you advertise this even if all attempts within their power had been made? I can’t assume that they had, but it will be down to the teams on the day to communicate this somehow.

 

[AdamWW]

Okay there was a failure under those terms. The original post says “no buses were booked”. Your post reads to more like Southern didn’t try hard enough, so I think there is a distinction even if it’s subtle.

It certainly wasn't the intention. I wasn't thinking very hard about my exact phrasing, just distinguishing between the thread topic (providing buses with plenty of notice) and the different situation of having to get them at no notice.

How as a train company would you advertise this even if all attempts within their power had been made? I can’t assume that they had, but it will be down to the teams on the day to communicate this somehow.

From what I remember, they explained that they had been unable to obtain replacement buses, that they weren't offering ticket acceptance on local buses because there wouldn't be the capacity, and that they had explored the possibility of deferring the engineering work but it wasn't practical to do so.

All of which is fair enough.

But it would be interesting to know if - in hindsight - they could have done better and, more importantly, if so whether they have learned lessons so that this is less likely to happen next time.

 

[Horizon22]

It certainly wasn't the intention. I wasn't thinking very hard about my exact phrasing, just distinguishing between the thread topic (providing buses with plenty of notice) and the different situation of having to get them at no notice.



From what I remember, they explained that they had been unable to obtain replacement buses, that they weren't offering ticket acceptance on local buses because there wouldn't be the capacity, and that they had explored the possibility of deferring the engineering work but it wasn't practical to do so.

All of which is fair enough.

But it would be interesting to know if - in hindsight - they could have done better and, more importantly, if so whether they have learned lessons so that this is less likely to happen next time.

Fair enough. All of that is reasonable to consider and review for future, I’m just acutely aware that I started a thread about this in 2021 and that it hasn’t got better in over 2 years due to various factors many of which are outside individual control of the company but the “railway” might be able to resolve (which could ultimately mean the DfT which is where so many things go back to).

If it could have been fixed easily it would have been.

 

[thaitransit]

They were lucky to even have local bus options! That isn't normally the case. Leaving rail replacement buses as the only option no matter how long it takes to arrange.

But for trackwork replacement buses. This is normally arranged weeks or months in advance. In Australia they are suffering similar bus driver shortages and in some areas a shortage of buses themselves for train replacement services.

A couple of months ago in Melbourne they had such a shortage of buses for major trackwork they had organised for buses from operators in Darwin to travel to Melbourne for a 2 week rail replacement job. Darwin is over 4000km away from Melbourne. Its a 5 day drive!

This is equivalent of organising buses from companies in Istanbul Turkey for a trackwork job in London!

The point is how far away from the trackwork job do they source buses. Is it allways local operators or can regional operators from say Scotland take jobs in London?

 

[Trainbike46]

2+3 seated coaches are used on rail replacement services, I was on one earlier this year during a weekend closure due to Cambridge South construction works.

It does seem unlikely there were no coach operators across the country that had availability for these engineering works scheduled in advance, which does suggest they didn't try hard enough. Maybe a solution combining ticket acceptance on local buses with some rail replacement buses could have worked?

And, just wondering out loud, has the railway in GB ever brought over coaches and drivers from France, Ireland, the Netherlands etc.?

 

[Bletchleyite]

2+3 seated coaches are used on rail replacement services

Some TOCs ban them and will send them away if they show up, some don't.

I've already outlined my view - that they should be illegal for carriage of adult passengers as it is impossible for an average sized adult to fully fit in one seat and correctly fit the belt. It's the belt that is the issue otherwise they'd be OK used to 2+1.

 

[Trainbike46]

Some TOCs ban them and will send them away if they show up, some don't.

I've already outlined my view - that they should be illegal for carriage of adult passengers as it is impossible for an average sized adult to fully fit in one seat and correctly fit the belt. It's the belt that is the issue otherwise they'd be OK used to 2+1.

Relevant though for this discussion regarding southern was that it was a Great Northern arranged RRB, so GTR and therefore presumably the same policy as Southern

Does anyone actually wear a seat belt on a coach?

 

[AdamWW]

And, just wondering out loud, has the railway in GB ever brought over coaches and drivers from France, Ireland, the Netherlands etc.?

I doubt that left hand drive coaches would be considered all that suitable so that would just be Ireland really.

(I don't suppose Malta or Cyprus would have all that many vehicles to spare).

 

[Bletchleyite]

Does anyone actually wear a seat belt on a coach?

Given that it's a legal requirement it needs to be possible to do so safely.

 

[Horizon22]

It does seem unlikely there were no coach operators across the country that had availability for these engineering works scheduled in advance, which does suggest they didn't try hard enough. Maybe a solution combining ticket acceptance on local buses with some rail replacement buses could have worked?

And, just wondering out loud, has the railway in GB ever brought over coaches and drivers from France, Ireland, the Netherlands etc.?

I don't think it suggests that at all. Other operators would naturally have also had engineering works on the same dates (Sunday). Then there's questions about the "going rate", to which their hands might be tied.

 

[blelic]

I live in the local area, and I can advise that the week prior, there were engineering works in the Barnham area as well, and almost all the rail replacement buses were sourced from the Go-Ahead group. They ran a ‘limited replacement bus service’ on these days, implying that they didn’t attempt to source from elsewhere and instead ran a service based on how many vehicles Go-Ahead would provide.

I travelled on a bus that day, and it was full and standing at one point during its route, so they must have been close to the limits of it being unsafe to provide a bus service that day.

Brighton & Hove themselves have been having driver availability issues lately, with large gaps on many services. Maybe they didn’t have the drivers available to run their own services, let alone a rail replacement service as well.

 

[RJ]

I live in the local area, and I can advise that the week prior, there were engineering works in the Barnham area as well, and almost all the rail replacement buses were sourced from the Go-Ahead group. They ran a ‘limited replacement bus service’ on these days, implying that they didn’t attempt to source from elsewhere and instead ran a service based on how many vehicles Go-Ahead would provide.

I travelled on a bus that day, and it was full and standing at one point during its route, so they must have been close to the limits of it being unsafe to provide a bus service that day.

Brighton & Hove themselves have been having driver availability issues lately, with large gaps on many services. Maybe they didn’t have the drivers available to run their own services, let alone a rail replacement service as well.

Brighton & Hove are tasked with arranging the rail replacement services in the area on Southern’s behalf - they have access to Go-Ahead’s list of approved suppliers which would include the sister operator in London and external suppliers.

 

[AdamWW]

I don't think it suggests that at all. Other operators would naturally have also had engineering works on the same dates (Sunday).

In that case you could argue that if Southern had got in first they might have been able to find buses to run a service at the expense of someone else's engineering works

 

[MrJeeves]

Other operators would naturally have also had engineering works on the same dates (Sunday).

And SWR did within about a 1 hour drive of the Southern engineering works, and they managed a good number of RRBs...

 

[TEW]

And SWR did within about a 1 hour drive of the Southern engineering works, and they managed a good number of RRBs...

SWR also had huge replacement bus shortages last weekend. And every weekend there are replacement buses in operation.

 

[infobleep]

Or not, since that's based on the timetable of the day, which had no buses in it.

In South Western Railway's case, the cancelled the buses on the day.

SWR also had huge replacement bus shortages last weekend. And every weekend there are replacement buses in operation.

No shortage the Sunday before as far as I am aware.

 

[AdamWW]

In South Western Railway's case, the cancelled the buses on the day.

But the situation described in the original post was announced in advance.

 

[TEW]

In South Western Railway's case, the cancelled the buses on the day.


No shortage the Sunday before as far as I am aware.

There definitely was the Sunday before between Haslemere and Havant. The last 3 buses were all cancelled, and many were missing throughout the day.