What could be done to mitigate mass cancellations when staff availability is low?

[setdown]

So West Midlands Trains have already announced a service gap this evening of over 5 hours between Birmingham and Liverpool.

What can be done to mitigate this on the day? This is a recurring issue with said operator (has been since the Central Trains days), and it’s obviously unable to fix the issues, or they would have been by now. So what can be done on the day when it happens?

Try and put on some replacement buses?

Work with other operators to make additional calls at stations missing services?

I’m keen to hear if other operators have different approaches when this happens. What else can be done to help in this situation?

 

[30907]

5 hours is bad, but Avanti is an alternative for the major stations. Additional calls at the likes of Hartford might or might not be possible., depending on the station - and the number of likely pax.

That said, travel demand is likely to be exceptionally low tonight for some reason that escapes me, and finding buses (even taxis?) might be a struggle