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First Bus Introduce Social Distancing

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WM Bus

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Well I’m currently being furloughed but I know my company has introduced social distancing on buses. I think a single deck vehicle will now take up to 10/11 passengers. When the bus is at its capacity, the driver then changes the blind to display the text the bus is now full due to social distancing.
How will this work? Will the drivers job be even harder than before? The driver will have to sail past lots of people , resulting in lots of complaints.
I’d imagine bus drivers will face lots of confrontation with this and will be even more difficult when the school kids start going back.
It depends if its actually going to be enforced I think. As I'm still seeing a few busy buses with people sat directly behind someone else on every single row of seats and not seen any sort of display being used. They just have advisory notices onboard.

And depends how long term a measure it is and whether this is still in place in September (which is still over 3 months away) surely. As the vast majority of school kids won't be going back till September i'd expect. In addition some school buses have a full seating load and standing passengers such as the 876 that I saw on Princes Way in Solihull a few months back, so they'd need more buses surely.
 
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F Great Eastern

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This is how it's being done in Ireland:


Posters are like this:
 

Flange Squeal

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Here's a briefing for Stagecoach staff. To sum it up, the advice is...
  • 20 - Double Decker
  • 11 - Single Decker
  • 10 - Midi Single Decker
  • 7 - Mini Bus (Solo)
Once at capacity, drivers are asked to set the blinds to 'Bus Full' and then only pick more people up when someone is about to, or already has, got off.

stagecoach.JPG
 
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Blimey! The bit that stood out to me is " use your best judgement, drivers will not be penalized for error".

Were I a stagecoach driver I would be printing that off and underlining that bit then get it laminated.

Refreshing to see a company support it's drivers, well done stagecoach.
 

RogerOut

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I agree but it’s still going to be hard for the driver. Imagine stopping to let one person off but 6 people want to get on.
One person can board and the other five can’t. Again the driver will take all the flack. Being a realistic.
 

hexagon789

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First Glasgow have changed the signs this morning. On Friday and yesterday you couldn't sit in every second row. The seats you could sit in were all window seats.

Now they've taken the labels off the aisle seats in the previously blanked out rows reinstating about maybe 12-14 extra seats across the bus.
 

Enthusiast

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"Always let your Supervisor/Controller know when the first passengers are left on each journey"

On many journeys that will be at or very soon after the point of origin. Please see my post #1275 (and onwards) of this thread:


This idea that buses will roam around the country a quarter full leaving people at bus stops is simply preposterous.
 
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What happens the second a driver is overloaded in virus safety mode and those already on the bus start complaining?

Lets see how long the drivers won't be penalized bit lasts.
 

richw

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Here's a briefing for Stagecoach staff. To sum it up, the advice is...
  • 20 - Double Decker
  • 11 - Single Decker
  • 10 - Midi Single Decker
  • 7 - Mini Bus (Solo)
Once at capacity, drivers are asked to set the blinds to 'Bus Full' and then only pick more people up when someone is about to, or already has, got off.

View attachment 78328

Near enough word identical to First driver briefing
 

LancasterRed

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In order to presumably enable social distancing, Preston Bus seem to have acquired some older double deckers. Haven't seen a single decker all day, making this the first day in over 100 years of operation that Preston Bus have run an exclusively double decker service on my local route.

Wow.

PBT don't have 'Bus Full' blinds installed (despite having old routes loaded on) but I would suspect it to be the same.
 

LancasterRed

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A load of deckers have also been moved to MK, which is traditionally a single-deck operation.

I'm somewhat aware of MK's bus situation so this comes as a welcome surprise for the residents no doubt.

I understand issues with DDA and other legislation but in these exceptional times if there are extra double deckers lying around it would surely be worth increasing capacity by using them rather than running Solos and the like. As long as they're clearly marked (for example in Preston, 1 DDA compliant service an hour, one non-compliant on the emergency timetable) might be an option as the number of people returning to work increases.
 

Bletchleyite

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I'm somewhat aware of MK's bus situation so this comes as a welcome surprise for the residents no doubt.

I understand issues with DDA and other legislation but in these exceptional times if there are extra double deckers lying around it would surely be worth increasing capacity by using them rather than running Solos and the like. As long as they're clearly marked (for example in Preston, 1 DDA compliant service an hour, one non-compliant on the emergency timetable) might be an option as the number of people returning to work increases.

To be fair MK isn't really Solo-land any more, most buses are either longish Streetlites or full size single deckers of some sort. There has occasionally been a decker knocking around - there was one a while ago which caught fire, and another has appeared in recent weeks on the 5/6s, perhaps that was some kind of trial. Typically in normal circumstances the single-deckers are big enough - rarely do you see any standees and mostly you can have a double seat - but it might well be the case that bringing deckers in will mean they can actually accommodate everyone wanting to travel, given that with the Redways (a comprehensive network of segregated cycle and pedestrian routes meaning that you can cycle or walk from anywhere to anywhere in MK without going on the road other than local roads at the start and end) I see it as quite likely there will be a lot of switching to cycling, at least in summer.

The routes they can be used on are limited due to low bridges, but the 5/6 are I believe both OK and are by far the busiest.
 

Busaholic

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In order to presumably enable social distancing, Preston Bus seem to have acquired some older double deckers. Haven't seen a single decker all day, making this the first day in over 100 years of operation that Preston Bus have run an exclusively double decker service on my local route.

Wow.

PBT don't have 'Bus Full' blinds installed (despite having old routes loaded on) but I would suspect it to be the same.
As a matter of interest to me, married to a Prestonian whose father worked for a well-known Preston-based bus company for over 40 years, which route would this be?
 

LancasterRed

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As a matter of interest to me, married to a Prestonian whose father worked for a well-known Preston-based bus company for over 40 years, which route would this be?

Just to confirm that every service of the day DID run as a double decker!

I'm not going to disclose it because it would disclose too much but if these two that run in rotation at the moment have run as a double deckers then it's fair to infer that EVERY city service ran as a double decker, given the new hires running around Preston that I've seen today.
 

Busaholic

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Just to confirm that every service of the day DID run as a double decker!

I'm not going to disclose it because it would disclose too much but if these two that run in rotation at the moment have run as a double deckers then it's fair to infer that EVERY city service ran as a double decker, given the new hires running around Preston that I've seen today.
No low bridges on any of the routes then?
 

richw

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Not sure how many spare deckers companies have sitting around, possibly school buses?

Bring back the Bristol Lodekka, no step and easy for the driver to isolate.

With schools colleges shut we’ve got quite a lot sat around SORN
 

CaptainHaddock

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So effectively what First and Stagecoach are saying is that they will refuse to allow key workers to travel to work on their buses even when 75 per cent of seats are free?

The government really needs to step in and say "if you implement this ridiculous plan we'll cut all your funding and subsidies".
 

Bletchleyite

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So effectively what First and Stagecoach are saying is that they will refuse to allow key workers to travel to work on their buses even when 75 per cent of seats are free?

The government really needs to step in and say "if you implement this ridiculous plan we'll cut all your funding and subsidies".

They are doing precisely what the Government has told them to do.
 

SouthEastBuses

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This is how it's being done in Ireland:


Posters are like this:

Are Dublin Bus, Go Ahead Ireland and Bus Eireann, wherever possible, moving to middle door boarding on their dual door buses like TfL London did?
 

WM Bus

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New timetable from 31st May states
"Additional journeys may operate between Buckland End and City Centre during busy periods"
Unusually this is something that's not usually on a timetable. So makes you wander how that will work - will they have buses parked up that can be used if needed to prevent to many people being on one bus, or something, as it doesn't give much of an indication what time these additional journeys are likely to run at and the word may sounds like they might not run at all.

 
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CaptainHaddock

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They are doing precisely what the Government has told them to do.

No, quite the opposite. The government guidelines are to try and maintain social distancing where possible. It has never, to the best of my knowledge, been legally enforced and most rational people accept that on public transport, social distancing may not always be possible.

Therefore the likes of First and Stagecoach are effectively making up their own rules and should not be allowed to get away with it.
 

richw

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No, quite the opposite. The government guidelines are to try and maintain social distancing where possible. It has never, to the best of my knowledge, been legally enforced and most rational people accept that on public transport, social distancing may not always be possible.

Therefore the likes of First and Stagecoach are effectively making up their own rules and should not be allowed to get away with it.
No they are not. Having seen the documentation the gov have issued, its 1 person per 4 seats. The government issued a diagram to operators to demonstrate this.
 

CaptainHaddock

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No they are not. Having seen the documentation the gov have issued, its 1 person per 4 seats. The government issued a diagram to operators to demonstrate this.

You're missing the point. The government are issuing guidelines, they're not advising bus operators to refuse to pick up passengers if a bus exceeds more than 25 per cent of it's capacity. If key workers are unable to get to work on time because First or Stagecoach are refusing to stop for them then something's very wrong.
 

Bletchleyite

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You're missing the point. The government are issuing guidelines, they're not advising bus operators to refuse to pick up passengers if a bus exceeds more than 25 per cent of it's capacity. If key workers are unable to get to work on time because First or Stagecoach are refusing to stop for them then something's very wrong.

If a bus operator ignores Government guidelines, they'll be up the proverbial creek if something happens. They are as good as law in that respect.
 

richw

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You're missing the point. The government are issuing guidelines, they're not advising bus operators to refuse to pick up passengers if a bus exceeds more than 25 per cent of it's capacity. If key workers are unable to get to work on time because First or Stagecoach are refusing to stop for them then something's very wrong.

Sorry you’re the only one missing the point. The government have issued guidelines which includes distancing and number of passengers per seat. The guide lines go as far as stating have a Way of displaying bus full
 
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