That’s the verdict of a Passenger Focus survey. “….. Stagecoach’s services rated 90%, First’s 88% and Bluestar’s 87%.” The survey goes on to say “Our research has found that most people are happy with many aspects of bus services in Hampshire. However, over a quarter (27%) of fare-paying passengers were dissatisfied with value for money and a fifth (21%) were unhappy with the frequency of buses.”

The 27% of passengers dissatisfied with their ticket’s value for money would have been greater, in my view, if Stagecoach South hadn’t frozen fares this year. However, as a commercial organisation Stagecoach need to maintain, and increase, profits. So how will the profits be maintained after costs have risen and fares frozen? This year it’s the drivers turn to ‘cough up’ in order to maintain profits and the very important Shareholder dividend.

The method by which our Depot has done this is to rewrite the driver’s rotas and duties – the most significant change being the introduction of split shifts. Split shifts are a period of work in the morning followed by a long unpaid break before a later period of work. The spread between the sign on time in the morning and sign off time at night can be 12 hours, of which only 7.5 hours may be be paid! The company initially agreed that all the split shifts would be covered by a Split Shift Rota which would comprise of volunteers. Nobody really had a problem with that, some drivers live very near to the depot and it would suit them perfectly; drive a bus for a bit, go down the allotment for a bit digging, have lunch and a nap then back to work. Others may have a wife at home and children at school so a great time for ‘rest and recreation’ ;-)

And then it all went wrong – the company reneged on the agreement that only volunteers would work split shifts. There weren’t enough volunteers and those who did volunteer are still entitled to holidays and sometimes time off sick so duties needed covering. Other, non-split shift, rotas have AD (Work as detailed) days in them and it’s here that the uncovered split shifts are allocated to drivers who do not live locally, have not volunteered for split shifts and do not want to spend 5+ hours in the canteen on unpaid break.

The net result of this being an outflow of drivers at a rate not seen for some years and much disquiet amongst those still there. At a Branch Meeting (RMT Union) there was a unanimous vote in favour of industrial action. The matter is now with RMT HQ who will attempt to negotiate with Stagecoach over this change to working practice. Failing any agreement there will be postal ballot of all members, carried out independently by an organisation such as The Electoral Reform Society, on industrial action.

I’ve wandered a bit from the subject of this posting but I wonder if Stagecoach will still be the best bus operator in Hampshire when the next survey results are published?