CrossCountry's Driver Shortage

[LowLevel]

I'm not sure, but I have a vague memory it might relate to door operation differences.

Anyhow I've certainly got the impression from posts on here that the driver does not count for the purposes of having a crew member in each unit, but that impression may be wrong, hopefully someone more knowledgeable can confirm or refute that.

On the 170's, I knew that EMR followed the practice you described on 170 double units since I've been on EMR services where the guard has made announcements to that effect (that he was only available in one portion of the train). But I wasn't sure if XC had different rules.

EMR 170 guards can actually be anywhere on the train and aren't required to stay in the rear unit. For reasons of practicality though they often do especially as most trains that run with multiple units reverse at some point allowing the guard to cover both units anyway. XC require their guards to stay in the back set however.

 

[GoneSouth]

Ultimately, though, the working arrangements were agreed to by the company, haven’t changed for many years, and the operator should have recruited accordingly.



It has been discussed on here that they have been recruiting heavily for a long time. Also keep in mind that, along with other operators, they recruit on a talent pool basis, so no live job adverts doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t taking people from pool to training school. However there is a limited capacity so this is a bottleneck.

Large volumes of recruitment also don’t necessarily lead to rapid increases in net numbers of crew available when you have an ageing workforce, retirements etc.

How do they recruit to the talent pool? Presumably that should be an ongoing process, otherwise the pool runs dry fairly quickly.

 

[43066]

How do they recruit to the talent pool? Presumably that should be an ongoing process, otherwise the pool runs dry fairly quickly.

They run periodic recruitment campaigns to keep the pool “topped up”, and can take people onto courses as and when they have training space.

This thread gives you flavour, trainee drivers are still being placed onto courses from a campaign that ran in Autumn 2023:

CrossCountry - Apprentice Train Driver - Multiple (19/09/23)

Not sure if anyone else in here is in the talent pool for Leeds too? I spoke to the recruitment team last month, who said that Leeds don't need anyone for the Jan course. So just hoping they need drivers at some point next year.

www.railforums.co.uk

One of the issues which think has already been mentioned is that drivers take a year or more to train, but only give three months’ notice to retire. If (say) you train 50 drivers in a year, but 45 retire, you’ve basically stood still.

 

[Bald Rick]

And would you expect Arriva to be one of them?

Arriva already have an Open Access company in Grand Central.

Is there really a staff shortage?

I've just had a look at the Arriva/XC recruitment site and I can't see any train crew roles to apply for!

If you were about to be relieved of your responsibilities of running a contact if any kind would you recruit? I certainly wouldn’t bother with all that hassle. They know the game is up so why should they care now.

I might be wrong but to a passenger that’s how it looks

AIUI Cross Country have more than enough drivers (odd statement though it might seem). However there are lots in training schools who will become qualified in the next few months. Also more than a few who, for whatever reason, are qualified but have lost parts of their ‘route cards’ and need re-training to get it back. That’s Hobson’s choice at this time of year - do you cancel trains to get the training done, or try to allocate work on the basis of where people are trained (but then run the risk of it not working out for whatever reasons on the day).

On the recruitment point, it is the same people who are running it now that will be running it when it swaps over to DFT (whenever that is) so it is in their interests to get recruitment / training done. Especially as Arriva are paid for it + a small margin.

 

[GoneSouth]

Well I wouldn’t be too upset never to see Arriva operate another train or bus in the UK. My experience started with Northern Spirit or whatever that morphed into u( utterly dreadful), then went onto various awful bus services around West Yorkshire (along with their terribly damaging strikes a couple of years ago which left passengers completely in the ****), and finally the extortionate, unreliable and generally unloved XC. Please let somebody competent run it under government control or is that too much to ask for

 

[D1015]

Is there really a staff shortage?

I've just had a look at the Arriva/XC recruitment site and I can't see any train crew roles to apply for!

They recently - end of October - ran for TMs based at Birminghan New Street. End of November they have requested SCs (cl 170 Turbo routes) and it is the latter a friend has applied for, and been given a very rapid schedule (compared to 'normal' railway recruitment timings).
Apparently the advert was posted 29th November. He applied 3rd or 4th December in time to meet the closing deadline of 6th December and received an email early this week inviting him to go to assessment centre this coming week. Sitting OPC tests on paper, a group exercise and if successful in those, an interview. He wonders if successful, when a job start would be given the lightning strike speed of the application process.

 

[12LDA28C]

Well I wouldn’t be too upset never to see Arriva operate another train or bus in the UK. My experience started with Northern Spirit or whatever that morphed into u( utterly dreadful), then went onto various awful bus services around West Yorkshire (along with their terribly damaging strikes a couple of years ago which left passengers completely in the ****), and finally the extortionate, unreliable and generally unloved XC. Please let somebody competent run it under government control or is that too much to ask for

Presumably you're under the impression that fares will reduce, reliability will improve and capacity will magically increase 'under Government control'. Can you explain how exactly that will be achieved? Because it's 'Government control' that forced XC to get rid of their HSTs, leading to even more overcrowding.

 

[weeklycommuter]

AIUI Cross Country have more than enough drivers (odd statement though it might seem). However there are lots in training schools who will become qualified in the next few months. Also more than a few who, for whatever reason, are qualified but have lost parts of their ‘route cards’ and need re-training to get it back.

I wish CrossCountry Trains would stop running their one or two extensions a day between Edinburgh and Aberdeen and between Edinburgh and Glasgow so in addition to freeing up rolling stock for more double sets on their core routes they no longer need any of their drivers to maintain route qualification between Edinburgh and Aberdeen or between Edinburgh and Glasgow. LNER have just ended their daily extensions to Glasgow and to some other destinations. I note the Department for Transport has in recent years been trying to eliminate duplication of services by different operators on some routes including ending GWR services to Brighton and SWR services to Bristol. This presumably eliminates the need for those train operators to ensure that some of their drivers maintain route qualification on those routes where their services duplicate services run by other train operators. Surely this helps to reduce the number of train cancellations caused by having no driver available with the route qualification.

 

[12LDA28C]

I wish CrossCountry Trains would stop running their one or two extensions a day between Edinburgh and Aberdeen and between Edinburgh and Glasgow so in addition to freeing up rolling stock for more double sets on their core routes they no longer need any of their drivers to maintain route qualification between Edinburgh and Aberdeen or between Edinburgh and Glasgow. LNER have just ended their daily extensions to Glasgow and to some other destinations. I note the Department for Transport has in recent years been trying to eliminate duplication of services by different operators on some routes including ending GWR services to Brighton and SWR services to Bristol. This presumably eliminates the need for those train operators to ensure that some of their drivers maintain route qualification on those routes where their services duplicate services run by other train operators. Surely this helps to reduce the number of train cancellations caused by having no driver available with the route qualification.

Well of course if an operator stops running services over a particular route, their drivers would not need to maintain competence on those routes because they won't need to drive over those routes any more. Surely that's obvious. If XC stopped going to Aberdeen or Glasgow, how would that have any bearing on drivers maintaining competence on other XC routes? Or is it your experience that XC services to Glasgow and Aberdeen are regularly cancelled due to lack of route knowledge? Presumably you also advocate XC ceasing operations west of Bristol, north of York, south of Reading and so on as they duplicate routes served by other operators?

 

[WAB]

I wish CrossCountry Trains would stop running their one or two extensions a day between Edinburgh and Aberdeen and between Edinburgh and Glasgow so in addition to freeing up rolling stock for more double sets on their core routes they no longer need any of their drivers to maintain route qualification between Edinburgh and Aberdeen or between Edinburgh and Glasgow. LNER have just ended their daily extensions to Glasgow and to some other destinations. I note the Department for Transport has in recent years been trying to eliminate duplication of services by different operators on some routes including ending GWR services to Brighton and SWR services to Bristol. This presumably eliminates the need for those train operators to ensure that some of their drivers maintain route qualification on those routes where their services duplicate services run by other train operators. Surely this helps to reduce the number of train cancellations caused by having no driver available with the route qualification.

What work are you anticipating the units to do if they did not do the runs beyond Edinburgh? In the morning, it forms the 1108 departure from Waverley. This would otherwise be formed by a unit off the shed as only one unit will have come from the south by that point. Similarly for the Glasgow starter. In the evenings, the extensions to Glasgow and Aberdeen run after the last train to Yorkshire leaves, so those units would otherwise just go straight to the shed. These are marginal time extensions.

Therefore, axing the extensions would not free up units for the core route.

 

[weeklycommuter]

Presumably you also advocate XC ceasing operations west of Bristol, north of York, south of Reading and so on as they duplicate routes served by other operators?

No as these are services with an at least hourly frequency. The services removed were a small number each day which duplicated an hourly or half hourly service by another operator.

What work are you anticipating the units to do if they did not do the runs beyond Edinburgh? In the morning, it forms the 1108 departure from Waverley. This would otherwise be formed by a unit off the shed as only one unit will have come from the south by that point. Similarly for the Glasgow starter. In the evenings, the extensions to Glasgow and Aberdeen run after the last train to Yorkshire leaves, so those units would otherwise just go straight to the shed. These are marginal time extensions.
Therefore, axing the extensions would not free up units for the core route.

As reported by the following press article in 2017 CrossCountry Trains attempted to transfer their services between Edinburgh and Aberdeen to ScotRail.

Scottish rail minister intervenes to block CrossCountry service reduction

www.railtechnologymagazine.com

A CrossCountry spokesman said: “Last year CrossCountry consulted widely on possible changes to its timetables from December 2017.
“These included the option of changing the number of CrossCountry services north of Edinburgh to and from north east Scotland, allowing the local train operator ScotRail to provide these.
“After discussions between the Department for Transport and Transport Scotland, it became clear that ScotRail would be unable to replicate these services at this time, so it was agreed there would be no changes to CrossCountry’s Scottish timetables from this December and further discussion would take place to agree the future of these services.”

 

[WAB]

As reported by the following press article in 2017 CrossCountry Trains attempted to transfer their services between Edinburgh and Aberdeen to ScotRail.

This doesn't answer the question though - what extra worthwhile capacity could be created by making an additional unit available on the core route between start of service and 1100, and 1800 to end of service whilst ensuring enough units are in place heading south in the morning? Yes, there is a minor saving to be made in terms of route knowledge but the XCs provide additional peak capacity to/from Aberdeen which Scotrail won't necessarily be able to provide, and there will be a decent handful of people boarding north of Edinburgh for points south (even if a proportion are cranks!)

 

[357]

I wish CrossCountry Trains would stop running their one or two extensions a day between Edinburgh and Aberdeen and between Edinburgh and Glasgow so in addition to freeing up rolling stock for more double sets on their core routes they no longer need any of their drivers to maintain route qualification between Edinburgh and Aberdeen or between Edinburgh and Glasgow. LNER have just ended their daily extensions to Glasgow and to some other destinations. I note the Department for Transport has in recent years been trying to eliminate duplication of services by different operators on some routes including ending GWR services to Brighton and SWR services to Bristol. This presumably eliminates the need for those train operators to ensure that some of their drivers maintain route qualification on those routes where their services duplicate services run by other train operators. Surely this helps to reduce the number of train cancellations caused by having no driver available with the route qualification.

I don't think you know how route knowledge works, with respect.

I believe those routes are what's known as "core routes" for the relevant depot - meaning that a driver needs to know it to be able to pass out/qualify.

You then keep your knowledge current by following the roster and driving it regularly enough to meet the relevant criteria.

To remove those routes from the depot, would simply reduce the number of drivers required to operate the timetable.

I highly doubt that if a train was cancelled it was due to the booked driver not having route knowledge. More likely, there wasn't a driver available at all.

There is a thread in the careers section showing route knowledge for drivers at different depots.

 

[A S Leib]

Aberdeen – Newcastle, Darlington, York and King's Cross is 154 passengers per day (almost half of Aberdeen – Edinburgh), and Dundee to those three is ~110; not a massive amount and Edinburgh – Newcastle isn't infrequent. Demand for Leeds, Sheffield and Birmingham is much lower, and the southbound CrossCountry service is only around half an hour behind an Aberdeen to King's Cross one (given that it gets to Penzance at ~22:00 and there's another London service an hour and a half later, and I don't know how easy changing ScotRail diagrams will be, that might be the least worst option if serving Aberdeen at all).

 

[Harpo]

Is there really a staff shortage?

I've just had a look at the Arriva/XC recruitment site and I can't see any train crew roles to apply for!

There could well be a full (or even over-filled) establishment with people still in training.

 

[GoneSouth]

There could well be a full (or even over-filled) establishment with people still in training.

This may well be true but that’s not reflected in the passenger experience so the moment. They could and should be more transparent. They’ve been given a concession by the government to run less trains to help with training, now it’s time to give back by updating their king suffering customers how that has helped the situation.

If they were to make a statement about how many drivers are coming through, when they’re expected and why the problems are still getting worse we might have more sympathy, but radio silence I think tells its own story

Presumably you're under the impression that fares will reduce, reliability will improve and capacity will magically increase 'under Government control'. Can you explain how exactly that will be achieved? Because it's 'Government control' that forced XC to get rid of their HSTs, leading to even more overcrowding.

I never said any of these things, please read more carefully.

I said I hoped (or at least implied it) but I didn’t say I expected improvements. I’ll just keep chucking my 120 quid at them for a couple of hours journey which is often standing, often late and often cancelled.

 

[LittleRedTrain]

In an ideal GBR world, you'd not have XC drivers, LNER drivers, GWR drivers etc, but just a common GBR driver pool at each depot who'd be able to drive almost all routes and traction passing through that area. (I'm assuming Scotrail and TfW would keep their own, and you might still keep a local/express distinction).

That way there'd be a bigger pool of spares available if the booked driver is unavailable.

Of course that would require harmonising T&Cs and a proper 'one railway' approach, so is a lot more difficult than it sounds.

 

[Harpo]

In an ideal GBR world, you'd not have XC drivers, LNER drivers, GWR drivers etc, but just a common GBR driver pool at each depot who'd be able to drive almost all routes and traction passing through that area. (I'm assuming Scotrail and TfW would keep their own, and you might still keep a local/express distinction).

That way there'd be a bigger pool of spares available if the booked driver is unavailable.

Of course that would require harmonising T&Cs and a proper 'one railway' approach, so is a lot more difficult than it sounds.

But perpetuating shortages by instigating a mammoth training and refreshing programme.

 

[357]

In an ideal GBR world, you'd not have XC drivers, LNER drivers, GWR drivers etc, but just a common GBR driver pool at each depot who'd be able to drive almost all routes and traction passing through that area. (I'm assuming Scotrail and TfW would keep their own, and you might still keep a local/express distinction).

That way there'd be a bigger pool of spares available if the booked driver is unavailable.

Of course that would require harmonising T&Cs and a proper 'one railway' approach, so is a lot more difficult than it sounds.

The problem that then leads to is that drivers will be poached from "less important" trains to cover other work if there is a shortage, normally local trains.

I've seen it happen with my own eyes at TOCs I worked for who operated local and fast services - not just with drivers but with rolling stock too!

 

[weeklycommuter]

This doesn't answer the question though - what extra worthwhile capacity could be created by making an additional unit available on the core route between start of service and 1100, and 1800 to end of service whilst ensuring enough units are in place heading south in the morning? Yes, there is a minor saving to be made in terms of route knowledge but the XCs provide additional peak capacity to/from Aberdeen which Scotrail won't necessarily be able to provide, and there will be a decent handful of people boarding north of Edinburgh for points south (even if a proportion are cranks!)

I reference the following in the CrossCountry Trains 2017 timetable consultation. The proposal was for another operator, which would be ScotRail, to provide the 0820 Southbound service from Aberdeen. It actually proposed a service to and from Aberdeen later in the day to make the five car Voyager used for the 0820 Southbound from Aberdeen service available to add capacity in the core of the CrossCounty network at peak times. Redeploying this five car Voyager to the core of the CrossCountry network to add capacity there at peak times was given as the reason for proposing this change but this change was rejected because ScotRail was unable at the time to take over the running of the 0820 service from Aberdeen to Edinburgh. LNER provide four through services a day to and from Aberdeen, three to and from London Kings Cross and one to and from Leeds, using Azuma trains which have a lot more seats than the CrossCountry Voyagers so I see no point in CrossCountry Trains now continuing to provide any through services to Aberdeen. ScotRail provide 11 of the 16 weekday train services Aberdeen to Edinburgh so it would make sense for ScotRail to run this 0820 service as well. ScotRail is the main operator for this internal Scottish route.

https://www.crosscountrytrains.co.uk/media/1492/crosscountry-2017-consultation-document.pdf

The current CrossCountry service provision for Aberdeen is primarily aimed at providing additional capacity between Aberdeen and Edinburgh. One impact of providing this service is that high capacity five car Voyagers are therefore dedicated to serving the extremities of the network at times when their optimum location should be in the core of the network at that time. The December 2017 proposal seeks to rebalance this by serving Aberdeen during the daytime, offering a more attractive service for through journeys from the Midlands, Yorkshire and the North, arriving Aberdeen in the early afternoon. The parts currently used by CrossCountry services would then be available to other operators.

 

[PG]

ScotRail provide 11 of the 16 weekday train services Aberdeen to Edinburgh so it would make sense for ScotRail to run this 0820 service as well.

One has to question the need for the 0820 service, if it became an internal Scottish service, instead of a cross-border through train.

The preceding LNER service has ample capacity to convey internal Scottish passengers and is only 28 minutes earlier. The 0820 does additionally call at Cupar, Ladybank and Markinch but is followed only 15 minutes later by a departure from Dundee.

All of which begs the question, why run the 0820 if not to provide a direct cross-border service?

 

[LittleRedTrain]

The problem that then leads to is that drivers will be poached from "less important" trains to cover other work if there is a shortage, normally local trains.

I've seen it happen with my own eyes at TOCs I worked for who operated local and fast services - not just with drivers but with rolling stock too!

That's not necessarily a bad thing.
If you have a driver that can either drive one man and his dog to Little Snoring, or 500 people from a football match/concert on the last train back to London, it makes much more sense to put the former in a bus/taxi and use the available driver for the latter.

It's annoying for the local service user of course but the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

The current setup doesn't allow the luxury of that decision.

 

[12LDA28C]

I never said any of these things, please read more carefully.

I said I hoped (or at least implied it) but I didn’t say I expected improvements. I’ll just keep chucking my 120 quid at them for a couple of hours journey which is often standing, often late and often cancelled.

You said "Please let somebody competent run it under government control or is that too much to ask for" and I'm pointing out that it's literally the Government that is causing some of the problems on XC so 'Government Control' is certainly not the panacea you might believe it to be.

In an ideal GBR world, you'd not have XC drivers, LNER drivers, GWR drivers etc, but just a common GBR driver pool at each depot who'd be able to drive almost all routes and traction passing through that area. (I'm assuming Scotrail and TfW would keep their own, and you might still keep a local/express distinction).

That way there'd be a bigger pool of spares available if the booked driver is unavailable.

Of course that would require harmonising T&Cs and a proper 'one railway' approach, so is a lot more difficult than it sounds.

Doesn't sound ideal to me - that would be a nightmare to roster to ensure drivers retained route and traction knowledge on everything. It just wouldn't work.

 

[GoneSouth]

I’ll

You said "Please let somebody competent run it under government control or is that too much to ask for" and I'm pointing out that it's literally the Government that is causing some of the problems on XC so 'Government Control' is certainly not the panacea you might believe it to be

Precisely, a wish rather than an expectation. I never said government control was a panacea, and actually I used exactly that word in a different post.

I doubt very much that government control will fix anything, but I was hoping and asking for it to.

 

[Newtraveller58]

I wish CrossCountry Trains would stop running their one or two extensions a day between Edinburgh and Aberdeen and between Edinburgh and Glasgow so in addition to freeing up rolling stock for more double sets on their core routes they no longer need any of their drivers to maintain route qualification between Edinburgh and Aberdeen or between Edinburgh and Glasgow. LNER have just ended their daily extensions to Glasgow and to some other destinations. I note the Department for Transport has in recent years been trying to eliminate duplication of services by different operators on some routes including ending GWR services to Brighton and SWR services to Bristol. This presumably eliminates the need for those train operators to ensure that some of their drivers maintain route qualification on those routes where their services duplicate services run by other train operators. Surely this helps to reduce the number of train cancellations caused by having no driver available with the route qualification.

Part of the devolution agreement between the DfT and the Scottish Government (Transport Scotland) requires the Anglo Scottish operators to provide these services. If they do not do so, the DfT should be paying Transport Scotland so that ScotRail can obtain the resources required to operate the services. Services on the Glasgow route were transferred from the EC operator to XC as a 2 hourly service which has never been reinstated since Covid. As this provided an important link between Motherwell and Edinburgh as well as between Glasgow and North East England I don’t understand why there has not been more fuss from the Scottish Government to push XC to have at least a plan to reinstate the service when (train crew) resources allow - they should already have enough resources to have 1 set west of Edinburgh except that the DfT told them to take the HSTs off lease. If they acquire the Avanti 221s which have just gone off lease, they should be able to reinstate the service to Glasgow as well as the evening northbound service to Aberdeen and the southbound service from Dundee in the morning which were part of the core timetable. Incidentally, I believe the same applies to the LNER services to Inverness, Aberdeen and Glasgow, the latter of which they have just withdrawn. The Stirling service which they have also just withdrawn was a later addition by whichever operator was running what is now LNER in about 2014 and therefore was not part of the devolution settlement.

 

[duffield]

You said "Please let somebody competent run it under government control or is that too much to ask for" and I'm pointing out that it's literally the Government that is causing some of the problems on XC so 'Government Control' is certainly not the panacea you might believe it to be.



Doesn't sound ideal to me - that would be a nightmare to roster to ensure drivers retained route and traction knowledge on everything. It just wouldn't work.

Your post reads as if the previous government is still in place and no election has occurred. "The government" that made all those decisions about XC for 14 years is no longer "The Government". The previous government, when it nationalised franchises, did so only when forced, as a last resort, and had no incentive to show how well the state could run a service since its objective, as formerly set out in the law, was to return them to the private sector. The new government has abolished that requirement and has every incentive to make a success of state run railways, if it is to have something to show off at the next election.

Yes, of course it's true that there is no guarantee that the new government will make better decisions, and also true that the financial situation will remain tight, but it seems very premature to just assume that every decision the new government makes will be exactly along the same lines as the previous one. In fact, within the financial constraints set, it appears to me that many of the priorities will be set by one person, Peter Hendy, so a lot seems to ride on his competence and ability to make changes.

Personally I will wait until GBR takes shape before making any judgements. And in the meantime, blaming "The Government", as in the present one, for the current state of XC seems misdirected.

 

[12LDA28C]

Your post reads as if the previous government is still in place and no election has occurred. "The government" that made all those decisions about XC for 14 years is no longer "The Government". The previous government, when it nationalised franchises, did so only when forced, as a last resort, and had no incentive to show how well the state could run a service since its objective, as formerly set out in the law, was to return them to the private sector. The new government has abolished that requirement and has every incentive to make a success of state run railways, if it is to have something to show off at the next election.

Yes, of course it's true that there is no guarantee that the new government will make better decisions, and also true that the financial situation will remain tight, but it seems very premature to just assume that every decision the new government makes will be exactly along the same lines as the previous one. In fact, within the financial constraints set, it appears to me that many of the priorities will be set by one person, Peter Hendy, so a lot seems to ride on his competence and ability to make changes.

Personally I will wait until GBR takes shape before making any judgements. And in the meantime, blaming "The Government", as in the present one, for the current state of XC seems misdirected.

Regardless of the colour of the Government in charge, the same civil servants will be employed at the DfT so you'll forgive me if I'm not expecting fleets of new or cascaded stock to be introduced where it's needed as a matter of priority just because Labour won the election. Time will tell.

 

[sikejsudjek]

The biggest problem is that they don't carry DoT staff to London! If they had to put up with the abysmal service they might do something about it.

 

[Bald Rick]

In an ideal GBR world, you'd not have XC drivers, LNER drivers, GWR drivers etc

Agreed

but just a common GBR driver pool at each depot

Agreed

who'd be able to drive almost all routes and traction passing through that area.

Not agreed. This would drive a large amount of training, traction and route refreshing, which adds complexity, cost and risks to performance. It is no coincidence that the TOCs with the best performance are generally those who have relatively simple traction and route cards per depot: c2c, Merseyrail, GA, Overground, Elizabeth Line.

IMHO the answer is more focused route and traction knowledge where practical.

 

[357]

Not agreed. This would drive a large amount of training, traction and route refreshing, which adds complexity, cost and risks to performance. It is no coincidence that the TOCs with the best performance are generally those who have relatively simple traction and route cards per depot: c2c, Merseyrail, GA, Overground, Elizabeth Line.

IMHO the answer is more focused route and traction knowledge where practical.

I'm sure I've heard of delays in BR days because "there's a driver from the intercity link but he refuses to drive this train" - most likely route or traction knowledge based?