Stagecoach has announced a further series of "temporary" withdrawals of buses throughout Lancaster and Morecambe from Monday, 18th July. As with previous reductions, the company has chosen not to reduce frequencies in a controlled manner, but is instead withdrawing individual journeys, presumably based on drivers' duties, which leads to an uneven service on the road.
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| Service 4 will see almost half its buses cancelled next week |
Worst hit is service 4 (University - Railway Station - Lancaster Bus Station), which will see no fewer than 25 of its usual 45 journeys wholly or partly cancelled - a failure rate of 48%!
Services 1/1A (University to Heysham) are also badly affected with 48 trips either wholly or partly cancelled - 24% - as is service 100 with 23 journeys affected. All together, no fewer than sixty buses per day between Lancaster and Morecambe will not run next week.
There are also cuts on services 2X, 6, 6A, 40, 41, 49 and 55 and the full list can be seen HERE
Co-incidence?
It may, of course, just be co-incidence, but Stagecoach nationally has won the contract to provide "hundreds" of buses (presumably with drivers) for the Commonwealth Games, which take place in Birmingham this year. The Games themselves open to the public on 28th July, although the buses will need to be there earlier to provide transport for staff and athletes arriving in the city and, of course, to give time for route-learning by drivers.
History
Stagecoach has a long history of providing transport for major sporting events, including the British Grand Prix, the Open Golf Tournament and previous Games and such work is no doubt very profitable and well worth pursuing as long as you have the resources available. But in the current climate of driver shortages and sickness it would be disappointing if the company were to be chasing short-term profits at the expense of its core business of providing transport for local people.
There are also knock-on problems to expect. The Games contract requires double-deck vehicles, which means that local services may see more single-deckers operating. When a single-decker turns up on a service where the previous double-decker has been cancelled passengers will be penalised twice, by having to wait and then suffering a more crowded journey. Single deckers have been reported on services 1A and 6A already this week, both of which are usually double-deck routes.
And what about holidays? One way of providing drivers for the Games would be to postpone holiday leave, but this just means that a backlog of holidays will build up, leading to more cancellations later in the year.
The current cuts are said to be "until 25th July", buttbefore when a further announcement will no doubt be made and the situation could get even worse.
The Bus Users' Group appreciates that decisions on whether to undertake event transport work, and how to resource it, are taken at national level, not locally, and that the level of staff shortage and sickness will vary throughout the Stagecoach empire, but local people have been suffering from cancellations for some time now and its disappointing that its about to get worse - whatever the reason.