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?

This topic was first raised in the Omnibus2.0 blog about 10 days ago. The posting was very damning of the idea that drivers should be allowed to wear shorts in order for the driver to “be maintaining a professional standard of appearance”.

Then Leon Daniels took the baton and ran with it even more determinedly managing to show how out of touch a main board director of a bus company plc can be! Leon wrote “For the avoidance of doubt I have no trouble driving a bus for a full shift in my uniform trousers, shirt and tie. ……. I have the cab aircon on and the cab window SHUT so that the cab stays cool, and I turn off the sources of all known heat like the saloon lights, cab lights, etc.” How far out of touch with reality can you get? Give me a bus with aircon and I too would happily wear trousers, shirt and tie PLUS a jacket if you’d like! Leon, I challenge you to rewrite that statement to reflect what 99% of bus drivers (who don’t have aircon in the cab) have to cope with in summer by writing ‘I have no trouble driving a bus for a full shift in my uniform trousers, shirt and tie even if it does not have aircon’. Incidentally the internal lighting if left on by mistake only emits a very small amount of heat. By far the biggest factor is the number of passengers each of which is radiating around 120 watts of heat. 43 passengers produce 5 kilowatts of heat, the equivalent of five electric heater bars being on in the bus.

Then Omnibuses2.0 returned with the results of their poll on the subject which for me contained a bit of a surprise. I expected the drivers to vote to be overwhelmingly in favour of shorts (until we get aircon I don’t think that will change) and it was 70% for and 30% against. The managers were almost 50:50 in their voting. But the greatest supporters of shorts were the passengers 85% in favour and only 15% against!

So, we have the managers believing that shorts should not be worn because “The real reason should be maintaining a professional standard of appearance. It’s what the public expects” (Omnibese2.0) and “A smartly-dressed, clean and tidy driver already gives passengers a good impression which makes them feel comfortable and assured” (Leon Daniels) yet these same passengers are more in favour of shorts than anyone else.

This afternoon I pulled up in the bus station to load passengers for the 14:35 number 68 to Stockbridge and kept the doors closed for a few minutes while I updated the ticket machine with the route data. During this time I noticed a slightly unkempt gentleman on a bench near my bus, he had several plastic bags and there appeared to be liquid on the ground around the bags and he was double bagging another. I don’t know why but I suspected that he had alcohol. I opened the doors to load the bus and several people boarded and then the unkempt gentleman appeared a couple back in the queue, immediately there was a very strong smell of drink! I punched the return tickets of the two other passengers in front of him without giving them a second glance. My full attention was on the unkempt man. He then showed a 7 day Megarider Gold which allows travel anywhere on our network as often as you like. However, I did ask him where he was going ( the 14:35 number 68 is the only number 68 in the day which doesn’t go all the way through to Salisbury) and he said “Salisbury”. I explained that this bus only went as far as Stockbridge with the next Salisbury bus not being until 16:40, “and then you come back here”? he said. I could see his thought process that he’d do the round trip and then go to Salisbury. “Not exactly” I said “in Stockbridge the bus does a school run and then returns not in service to Winchester so you can’t do a round trip”. At which point he left the bus and I pulled away.

As I drove out of Winchester I was thinking things over and feeling quite smug about how I’d ‘lost’ a passenger who stank of drink without having to make any comment on it at all. In fact I was rather proud until ……………… aaargh ………… groan ……… and other odd sounds came from behind me. Definitely male but sounding like someone in child birth! I was a bit nonplussed by this. Then loud speech but I couldn’t understand what was being said. My first thoughts were that the passenger maybe had a mental problem but then I thought that they may be unwell so I pulled the bus over and went to them saying “Are you OK?” Then it hit me, the stink of alcohol! It was this guy which stank of alcohol and I’d not looked at him because I thought it was the other guy! He was incoherently drunk and clutching a bottle of vodka. He couldn’t tell me where he was going, and wouldn’t show me his ticket. He was totally obliterated. The problem was that if he didn’t get off I’d end up at the school to pick up the kids with a drunk on board. I called base and they told me to call the Police and ask for assistance in removing him. I did this and then had to wait 30 minutes for them to turn up. Eventually they persuaded him that he had to leave but he couldn’t actually walk so they ‘helped’ him off the bus.

Yesterday it was reported that “Pink has praised her driver for safely manoeuvring her tour bus off a busy motorway after it blew a tyre yesterday.”

Sadly, no one praised me for safely manoeuvring my bus when I had a tyre blow out today. I don’t even think they knew a tyre blew out. Even I wasn’t quite sure if the loud bang was a tyre blowing or a plastic drinks bottle being run over! I was in Salisbury, which is nearer to the Andover Stagecoach depot than my home depot of Winchester, so Andover came out with a spare wheel in a van. Just one small problem they’d brought the wrong size spanner! I call it a spanner but it’s really a wheel nut wrench. Apparently we have larger nuts in Winchester than Andover! (Make of that what you will). Salisbury is the ‘home’ of Wilts & Dorset buses and their depot is just up the road from the bus station so our fitter went begging for a bigger spanner there. Thanks Wilts & Dorset for the loan of your biggest spanner :-)

Hampshire County Council have recently released this promotional video for the new cark which opened on 19 April.