Roadworks leading to an unsuitable route or none whatsoever being available; bus sourcing/crewing issues; accident; bus breakdown... basically much like railway services!
I usually see advice that passengers should use the Help Point Information buttons to seek assistance if planned replacement buses don't turn up within a reasonable time, or if there is some problem with bus sourcing. These buttons are often connected to National Rail Enquiries, it seems, so they may or may not be of any help, as opposed to an operator who is obliged to be...
Or the bus driver might have had inadequate route instructions and got lost (at least that doesn't happen that often with trains!)
Snag with help points is that a certain well known but unwritten law says the minute you go back to the platform to use it, that's when the bus will go past...
And since National Rail Enquiries doesn't always have info about replacement bus services (I believe that if it doesn't get the info X weeks in advance, it won't show it) talking to them isn't a lot of use...
I think there are serious issues around rail replacement buses that the industry has consistently failed to address. There seem to be no fixed protocol or industry standards for rail replacement buses in place, either for the standards of the vehicles or the drivers.
Why are station forecourts not designed with rail replacement buses in mind? Why are the points that replacement buses call at not permanently defined in a clear and obvious way?
Why are staff frequently not present at stations when replacement buses are in operation to assist passengers, and I mean proper knowledgeable railway staff, not college students from an agency on minimum wage.
I've been on many rail replacement journey's, the standard of the drivers is often exceptionally low, on one occasion I even felt compelled to ring the police. It's part of the railways operation that merits serious examination in my opinion.
Can concur with some of that.
Obviously, some railway forecourts were designed in an age when motor vehicles didn't exist, let alone 12 metre plus coaches... Some stations simply don't have forecourts.
And some replacement routes can operate a much shorter route by picking up a short distance from a station rather than making a lengthy detour to get to the station door.
But where that happens, there most certainly should be good signage.
South West Trains seem reasonable at temporary "this way for replacement bus" signs from station to bus stop.
Extra info on bus stops seems very variable - at some stations in London there's a "rail replacement buses stop here" flash on the bus stop flag, at others there isn't - some TOCs seem to have got TfL's co-operation here, others don't. I don't know who is to blame here.
Outside London, it varies whether bus stops are owned / maintained by operators or local / county councils, so it's probably even more complicated.
There can be variations depending on, for example, whether buses are terminating at station X (therefore maybe only one stop is used) or running a through service via station X, in which case it might be more sensible to use stops on opposite sides of the road.
But there needs to be a way that intending passengers can find this out! And not for there to be so many different versions of the 'official' route in circulation that the right stop will depend on which version of the route the bus driver was given...
Different ToC's seem to have different approaches to staffing rail replacement. FCC seem to try more than some to have staff at key stations, but don't staff all stations by any stretch of the imagination.
Southern and South Eastern don't ever seem to have any visible staff looking after their buses even at terminus / interchange points, and on one or two occasions I've found (for example) that Southern's station staff at London Bridge don't even know that a rail replacement service is happening when it's running from from Tooley Street...
As for the idea of railway staff being present at all stations when there's a replacement on - Do today's railways even have enough staff to round up sufficient people to staff every wayside station for 2 shifts on a Sunday when those wayside stations may only be part time staffed by a single person on weekdays? I somehow suspect not. Even if all concerned were prepared to work Sunday overtime.
I don't know if a "one size fits all" approach to vehicles would work - for a London suburban line, double deck buses are probably the best thing to use (unless of course there's a low bridge or two to think about), for longer distance services, coaches with plenty of luggage space and a toilet would be appropriate. There's also some stations that either passenger demand or physical access constraints means you can't get a vehicle bigger than X anywhere near the station.
hock:
