Re: 31 miles behind wheel?

Ian Jelf wrote:
In message <654r3kF2dcq2fU1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, John Williamson <johnwilliamson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes
Ian Jelf wrote:
I would think that if you try to divide services between "long distance" and "urban service" then there would be some *very* grey areas in between.

Take the area within which most people live, work & shop, & you end up with a reasonable working definition. When they're making laws, they can't say "All services within an area catered for by the market/ shopping centre in "X"". That's too vague, so they set a limit of route length. It could have been a radius of such & such a distance from the centre of the town, with just as many grey areas. Things like this are the reason the negotiations for these rule changes took about a decade, & were delayed by a few years after they'd been agreed in principle.

If the route length is limited, then the likelihood of breaches in drivers hours rules is reduced.
I can't see why. If the law restricts the drivers to certain sections of that route then that is enough, in my view. Of course, it might not be *economic" for companies to arrange driver change-overs en route, especially with the paucity of depots and smaller operators these days. But that's a commercial decision for the operator.

Yup. There's also a temptation to cut corners if the appropriate checks aren't made, which costs money. If, on the other hand, you make it impossible or very difficult for the rules to be broken, (As in saying that a shared service must either be split into 2 or more separate services, or run under EU rules) you don't need to run the same number of checks.
Indeed.

However, this seems to me a way of ensuring rules are enforced (which is a Good Thing) by potentially giving a less convenient service (which is a Bad Thing). Better to enforce the rules properly (and with proper inspection) than make it difficult to operate certain services (which might be handy/useful/attractive to passengers).

But which will make it more expensive to operate, potentially removing the service altogether, which is what the operator quoted in the Mail article said and we both agree would be a Very Bad Thing.

So let's all go back to the days of logbooks & filling in whatever you like on the ***. While we're at it, let's remove the limits on what drivers can do each day.
What?!
Where have I shown any support for that sort of thing. I am a firm supporter of maximum restriction in drivers' hours. Too many operators try to wring too much out of staff for too little.

Taking you last point first,
Fine; but I reiterate that at no stage have I (or would I) endorse anything which encouraged or permitted the breaking of safety (driver's hours) rules. I particualrly wish to disassociate myself from the remarks you introduced about going back to "the days of logbooks & filling in whatever you like on the ***".

Accepted.

the only reason the employers can get away with paying the wages they do is because the employees let them.
Absolutely. Pay peanuts.......etc.

Indeed.

But something people in customer-facing roles often forget is that important fact: *serving* the customer. If we wish to encourage more use of public transport, we need to make that service as attractive as possible. Trent were once ridiculed by some in the industry for having the temerity to ask drivers to smile at passengers. Making people feel welcome and important is an integral part of getting them to come back. Similarly, running a through service (or not forcing vehicle changes for administrative reasons) is part of that long and hard climb to making public transport attractive to new audiences.

If I ask who pays their wages, most of my colleagues answer "The Boss" or some variation of that. Very few seem to realise or be interested on the fact that it's the passengers that pay their wages, as well as all the other costs of the company.

A major part of getting motorists out of their cars (including me when I'm off duty or trying to get to work) is also to make it cheaper than & almost as convenient as a car. If I go shopping from where I live to Hanley, it costs a pound each way on the bus, which runs every 10 minutes (I'm lucky, as I live where 2 routes combine). If what I want isn't in stock in Hanley & I need to go to Newcastle or Longton, it takes about an hour to get there from Hanley, costing a couple of pounds, then the same in reverse to get back to my home. In a car, it costs me about 2 pounds a day, whether I use it or not, a pound for parking in Hanley, the same in Newcastle & about 2 pounds in petrol. I can do the entire round trip (and the shopping, usually) in the time I'd spend waiting for a bus from Hanley to Newcastle. Just going to Hanley, the car breaks even ignoring the fixed cost, if I go to Newcastle as well, I'm up by a pound or so, plus I save an hour or more if I go by car. The bus journey to work used take over an hour for a distance I could drive in 15 minutes, & it cost a bit more than the petrol.

Nobody *forces* them to drive a bus for a living. The fact that there are currently thousands of unfilled driver vacancies nationwide might indicate that this is starting to happen. It happened a while ago in the road freight sector, I believe.
I know little about road freight but certainly I hear this again and again in the coach driving industry. I was speaking to a training officer from a coach company recently, discussing why one particular driver is such a useless t*** and yet has remained in their employ for so long. He said (you know what's coming here, don't you?) that they had to keep such people as they couldn't get drivers. I did suggest they try paying more but I was then reminded of the need to keep down costs because people want to pay the lowest price possible for their tour/coach hire/day trip/holiday/etc.

Yup. As a country, we'd still rather travel cheap & moan about it than pay a reasonable price & get good service. It doesn't only apply to travel, either....
The price increase doesan't have to be great to put the public off a service, though. An increase from 99p to £1.05 can decrease interest in a trip to zero from full loads, especially if someone else is charging £1.01 for another run along a similar route.

To be honest, I don't fully subscribe to this view. In my own sphere of work I quote towards the top of the range of prices. That occasionally loses me work but more often it underlines a degree of professionalism on my part, which I like to think is fulfilled when I carry out the work. Certainly, people come back.

You must be satisfying the need, then. Unfortunately, a lot of people involved in transport as both customers & suppliers want to pay as little as possible to get a service they'll put up with, rather than the true cost of a good service.

Reducing the regulation on routes must almost inevitably reduce the regulation of what drivers are permitted to do.

If we go back to first priniciples here, a bus is a vehicle that runs on a fixed route at fixed times, carrying people for individual fares between points on that route. This covers both the hail & ride that goes along my street & the National Express service from Aberdeen to London.

At some point along this spectrum, the nature of the service changes from being a local service to a long distance service, which has different needs from the drivers & vehicles and with a different passenger profile. The 50km limit covers (roughly) the distance across the traditional cachment area for a market town in the UK, & also the equivalent in other countries
No I don't agree that you can give a "one size fits all" figure for this and to do so just makes artificial breaks of journey and cuts links.

Not everywhere is a market town and not everywhere has a "traditional catchment".

I didn't say everywhere was a market town, or that everywhere has a traditional cachment. However, I consider it a reasonable starting point for negotiations. Any move away from a one size fits all solution here would cost so much in time & effort that nobody would bother to do anything. Imagine having to go to court every time you want to run a new bus service or change an existing one to decide whether it was to run on domestic or EU rules. The current system is at least easy to understand & consistent.

. On this basis, any service within this distance could be considered local, as that's the area within which most people still carry on the majority of their lives. This makes it a good break point to decide whether transport service is local or long distance. Long distance could be considered as being between major centres of population, such as adjacent large conurbations, most of which are over 50km apart. There will be grey areas, but there always will be, or will be made to be, especially when someone's trying to save a few bob.

You do seem to have an obsession about everyone "trying to save a few bob"! I for one have no desire or interest in lining a transport operator's pockets by allowing corners to be cut or such like. I *do* though feel that forcing routes to be chopped up at arbitrary points is a retrograde step.

30 plus years in passenger transport gives me that attitude.
It's the way it's worked for the last 3 decades in my personal experience & also before that, according to the drivers I worked with who'd been in the industry for 20 or 30 years before that.

One example from the 70s was where, if an operator bought a new vehicle, the government paid a sizeable grant (The "bus grant") if the vehicle had a power operated door & bellpushes, which, in theory, turend it into a bus. For a while, every new coach had these fitted as a matter of course, not because it gave a better service, but because the operator got an discount on the cost of a new coach.
The year the grant stopped, so did the fitting of bellpushes & power doors, until people complained & they bacame standard fitment.

The route chopping is not a new problem either. It used to happen between towns where 2 operators (Both quite often owned by the respective local councils) couldn't agree on who was to run the service back in the days before regulation.

These rule changes were proposed over a decade ago & came into force about a year ago, & if it's taken until now for people to notice, they can't be having that serious an effect.

I'm fast coming to the conclusion that there ought to be Tachographs on all vehicles just to prevent this sort of thing.

I'd agree with that for other reasons as well.

If you have better way to decide if a service is local or not, then what is it?
I think if forced I'd settle for 80km or else accept Tachographs on all vehicles.

Which lets the coaches from London Victoria to Reading & Luton (just to take two random examples) run as a local service, but would still not let the Newcastle to Carlisle service run without tachographs or splitting. Tachographs it is, then. ;-)

Bear in mind that requirements from passengers for a service from Birmingham to London, or even Birmingham to Coventry, are not the same as the requirements for a service between Balls Green & Birmingham City Centre.
I'm not sure in what way the passenger requirements are "different" in the way that you mean. Birmingham to London might want an on-board loo and a guaranteed seat; but in all cases I want a convenient journey, comfortable seat, easily available timetable and fare information.

City to city, the main requirements seem to be for a fast, regular service without many stops, as against the Balls Green service, which has to be frequent & stop at many points en route. The comfy seat isn't so important if you're only sat on it for a few minutes, as against a couple of hours. A routemaster seat was comfy for half an hour or so, but agonising after a couple of hours. A timetable isn't so important when the bus runs every 10 minutes or so, but is vital when it runs every 76 minutes. Not so vital when it runs every hour, as you can just remember that it leaves your stop at "x" minutes past the hour.
But what's more convenient, a stopping journey from Balls Green to Birmingham centre, followed by a rapid transit to Coventry, or a slow journey from Balls green to Coventry, stopping every hundred yards as people get on & off?

Another point here is that in Europe as a whole, the trend for years has been for hub & spoke public transport systems, with the local bus services all running to & from the railway station, with long distance passengers being almost forced to use the railway. That isn't happening in Britain, partly due to the history of such long distance bus services being started since the bus industry was deregulated, & partly because the rail fares are so much higher than the bus & coach fares.
The design of British towns and cities also tends to conspire against this. To borrow a French word, the "urbanisme" of British towns and cities is very different from that of our neighbours.

I'd noticed. :-)
I spend about 18 to 20 weeks a year driving round France.
Another few weeks driving round Germany, Holland & Belgium.

But if a service from (say) Birmingham to Gloucester, via Bromsgrove, Worcester and Tewkesbury (to give a now fictional example) provides a Useful Facility to passengers, then that should be available, if it can be done within drivers' hours rules. If that means one driver from - say- Birmingham to Worcester and another taking over there (but with through bus and passenger facilities) then so be it.
Of course, it might not be *economic* for the companies to do that (probably won't be these days for reasons already given) but that should be their choice.

That'll be the reason the operators give for wanting to cut corners on drivers' working rules.
It might. As I've said, I'm not here to justify what an operator might or might not do.

Cost is always a good excuse for cutting corners, always "with due regard for safety" Did you notice my tongue firmly in my cheek, there?

A journey like that which was carried out within EU rules would be more expensive to operate than the same journey under domestic rules. But, if it's not economic, then should it be running? Should I, as a taxpayer, subsidise someone travelling as passenger from Birmingham to Gloucester by an inefficient method, even if that person is me?
That's a different question, though a perfectly valid one, of course.

We'll save it for another thread, then.

Similarly, why would anyone from a place near Birmingham want to go by bus to Gloucester, when they can travel by quicker & more effective means?
If that place was - say - Bromsgrove and they were going to - say - Tewkesbury, then the route (which once existed as the X72) would be the best. Of course, few people would want to do exactly that but the various overlapping journey possibilities help to make the whole more Useful (deliberate capital letter, there).

Useful to whom? What percentage of passengers would want to do that or similar trips which couldn't be carried on local services?

Perhaps the old 144, Birmingham - Bromsgrove - Worcester - The Malverns is a better example, though I'm not sure that would fall foul of the 50km limit. There were *many* overlapping journeys there.

Autoroute says probably...
48.9 km straight line routing through those town centres.
Depending when the route was set up, though, it probably ran to 49.99km.
But, then again, if the service was set up as two routes from Birmingham to (say) Worcester & (Say) Bromsgrove to Malvern, how many passengers would not be able to do their whole journey on one bus?

The limit is to differentiate between urban & rural services & is, on the whole, a reasonable one.
But any differentiation is a necessarily arbitrary one.

As is *any* decision on how long a driver can safely be allowed to work without a break. Some drivers can work safely for 6 hours, while others (Sometimes even the same driver on a different day) doing the same work are at their personal limit after 3. How can you legislate for that?
In the field of time you have to set an arbitrary limit. In the field of distance for a given vehicle on a service I believe you do not, if - say - the drive could be changed en route.

But why change a driver over when he's perfectly capable of carrying on safely?
The apparently arbitrary limit of 50km has been chosen as that's *usually* the distance below which a service is of a local character, & above which it is *usually* of a long distance nature.
Nobody claims it's a perfect solution & if I could come up with a better one, I'd not be sitting behind the wheel of an eighteen ton mobile greenhouse full of people.

The opinion of the legislators, in consultation with the transport industry, is that 50 km is a reasonable limit, unless you're trying to run a long distance bus operation on a shoestring. An alternative is to put *all* bus & coach services under the tachograph rules, which would increase all bus fares, & drive people away from the service. The other alternative, to remove *all* drivers from the tacho rules, won't be contemplated.
I wouldn't mind the first of your options. It would make the whole industry more professional in my view.
That second of your options is fatuous.

Intentionally so. But where & how do you draw the line, bearing in mind that the first option will never happen as long as bus companies are privately owned?
I've suggested that limits be enforced by time driven by one driver, not distance travelled by one vehicle on one through service.

Tachographs it is, then. :-)

The market will provide the answer. We could of course nationalise public transport but I suspect actual ownership wouldn't make much difference overall.

It did when it was done last time.

One thing I think I have gleaned from your post is that longer distance *bus* services (eg my example could still operate with local fares, no pre-booking, etc., just as now if the drivers/vehicles were fitted with tachographs? If so, then I think in some instances companies should look at that. (Like they'll take any notice of me.)

We`agree on that & National Express operate that way to a certain extent. While fares can be paid before departure, it is, I believe, still possible to turn up at a stop & buy a ticket off the driver, subject to there being room on board, in the same way as you can buy a pass or season ticket for the bus to work every day, or just hold your hand out at the stop.
I'm wondering about the definition of some of these sorts of service for O60s when the new English Concessionary pas arrangements come into force; does anyone know the availability in Scotland on what is after all a large network of services which blur the distinction between local and long distance?

I've no idea about that. I do know that Devon & Cornwall councils, among others, are moaning like mad about having to provide free transport for all the over 60s that go there on holiday. More funding problems, as the council have to pay the operators per pass & per journey, but can't recover the money from the passholder's local authority or from central government.

The anomaly in the UK is that we run services which meander from (say) Plymouth to Penzance via half of Cornwall & make a profit doing so, which don't, by & large, operate elsewhere in Europe.
There are some such networks on the mainland (Normandy has a network called "les cars verts" which provide a very British style rural network. Elsewhere the railways and Post Offices have historically provided networks which complement the railway and plug non-rail gaps. But you're generally right that things like our networks in places like Derbyshire and Somerset don't have parallels.

As you say, they're rare.
The postal services are generally exempt from tachograph rules, too.

What we're discussing isn't a problem in France or Germany, say, because these services just don't exist in any great number. They also exist in this country to an extent because we're the only country in the EU with a population density that makes it worthwhile.
Not sure I could back that up. Belgium and the Netherlands have dense populations (and bus networks to match).

Holland is mainly a densely populated strip along the coast, & is more like a single town in that area than a series of small towns. Go inland, & it's quite low density. Belgium has most of its population in the Brussels to Ostend corridor, with a few large towns scattered round, all linked by a very effective rail network. It's the size of Wales with the population of the area inside the M25, roughly.
As a country, we have the highest population density on average in Europe, apart from places like Vatican City & Monaco.

But please don't try to imply that I want fewer rules for drivers hours; quite the reverse.

Maybe I'm implying that, but in my mind, less regulation concerning routes implies less regulation over drivers' working conditions.
I see that as a non sequitur, which is where we differ to much! :-)

I may be wrong, but I can't see how wanting a route to work as a single unit for more than a certain distance helps reduce a drivers workload.
Because he or she would not be expected to drive it if it took him or her more than x hours to complete the turn?

Going from Newcastle to Carlisle, waiting in a "foreign" depot while he takes his break & coming back, as against driving halfway, dropping his passengers, picking some more up & coming back to his home depot for a brew & a moan with his mates? There's also less stress on the maintenance staff, as the vehicle is alway within a reasonable distance of its base, rather than being across the other side of the country.

--
Tciao for now!

John.

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