Bus Vannin is apologising to Isle of Man residents following ongoing disruption to the bus network in recent weeks.
It's been publishing daily updates - highlighting routes at risk of cancellation due to staff shortages and illness.
Head of Operations Ian Bates has been addressing some of the speculation around reasons for the disruption:
Hi there. I'm Amy Griffiths and I'm one of the journalists in Monks Radio's Newsroom and you're listening to Newscast. Hey, I'm Bates and I'm Head of Operations for Bus Fanning. Firstly, I'd like to apologise obviously to our customers out there for the disruption that they're encountering at the moment. I think it's fair to say we have a degree of staff shortages. We currently have 10 full-time positions and I think there's four part-time positions currently vacant. That leads us with the additional sickness that we're encountering, particularly at this time of year, when schools return normally. It's challenging to fulfil the number of services that we're operating each day. So what customers will see, particularly from our Facebook pages, is the runs, the services that we're open at the start of the day and hopefully they're seeing some proactive responses in how we cover those. I think as of today, for the last time I looked, there's probably nine individual runs out of roughly 400 plus that we do each day, Monday to Friday. We can slightly less but still encounter the same problems and challenges. And I think that's the thing as well, as when you list them all on social media, it looks like it's a large number that's affected, but when you put it into that context of how many are actually running on a daily basis, it is quite a small proportion. Yeah, it's a few percentage, but we're conscious that that one journey that someone is relying on is very important to them. The fact it's a small percentage of what we deliver every day still doesn't diminish the responsibility we have for operating their bus service on the other hand. And how do you decide which services are going to be at risk? How is that worked out? Through our allocation process the day before, we are aware of what's open from other vacant positions or sickness. That is work that is left from the duties that are populated for our staff to drive. And what we're doing at the moment is trying to be as transparent as we can and list all of those at the beginning of the day. And then throughout the day as colleagues offer for over time or we have office staff out covering some of the runs, we will update social media to say that these are covered. Now, clearly schools are important. I think we had our route 44 this afternoon to cover this morning. That has been covered as priority. We're conscious of the peaks of getting people to and from work, but we do work through make sure the hospitals getting the coverage it needs to do for people visiting and appointments, etc. And I think that's one thing that's cropped up in comments that we've had is that, I mean, particularly over the last couple of days, it seems to have been a number of hospital routes that have been affected. So how do you make sure the enough services are going to be providing to those key areas? If I can use the example of the hospital, for instance, so we have obviously several services that serve nobles. So as, and if we have to lose one, what we try to do is put out the alternative options for people getting both to the hospital and from the hospital. But at the moment, I think we've covered most on there to be challenged for my own social media posts. We've covered the hospital runs today. And that includes me, unfortunately, heading in that direction myself shortly to cover. As head of operations, would you know, is that routinely part of your job to be going out and about and driving the buses? No, no, I'm purely employed to sit behind this computer screen. Yeah, it's not ideal, you know, after it's not ideal for any of my team or myself to be out there, you know, it's very good to understand what my colleagues and their hard work and staff are actually getting challenged with every day. But I think as I've tried to cover at the very beginning, you know, we need to put these services out there. These services are relied on by population of the Isle of Man. We need to run them. And if we have availability to do so, those with licenses and, you know, a PPP license to be out there driving do. And obviously, I think both staff are doing that. And there is a recruitment process on going at the moment. People may actually have on social media seen the adverts running. How is that recruitment going at the moment? From what I've checked on this morning very well, we've had a positive response. Obviously, this is prior to any filtering or the recruitment process going through. For any of your listeners that are interested, I will, you know, ask them with hands clenched to look at the role. You know, it is a very interesting job to have. It's not just driving the bus, as many people. It's not just about the license. It's a level of customer service that we need. But if there's any interesting questions, you know, public transport at gov.im is an ideal way of getting in touch. Just looking at the timetable itself, I think one of your social media posts is explaining the current situation, was talking about the fact that the current timetable, it does require drivers to work over time. So is that something that's being looked at to address? And how does that work? We're conscious that a network and our operation has been very much in its current status for several years. And as part of the consultation that went out earlier in the year, you know, we are reviewing how we do that operation. You know, the setup we have at the moment makes it very difficult for us in these situations to reduce services without having an impact on others. And that is not an easy solution for us to do. You know, if the situation continues with the staff institute, which we will have to consider it, but at this moment in time, it's a resource which we haven't got to do. And just to address a few of the social media speculation that it's going around, I mean, allegedly used to be an overtime rate, which has now been withdrawn. Is that the case? Is that any truth to that? So potentially, why is some of the drivers of deciding not to take up that overtime? No, there is, there is a premium rate still in existence for a contract group and that remains in place. How are staff actually contracted? So are all weekend shifts considered to be overtime, for example? And how does that kind of breakdown work? Once again, depends on the contract the driver is signed up to, not all staff get a premium rate of the weekend. And there is a perception as well that there will be private services that are able to run. The cruise ships are often mentioned. Are they ever prioritised over the timetable services? No, they're not. I think it's a simple answer to that. And I can understand from a customer's perspective, if they see a private hire out there, and I think a couple of weeks ago, that was in some of the feedback we've seen is a concern. Obviously, from a private hire perspective, they are booked well in advance. And there was a contractual obligation, obviously, to deliver. However, there are other operators on the island that work if it is at risk for a core service stopping is handed back over to if they can assist. And going back to the number of vacancies that they're currently are at Bus Fan In, it's not far off 10% of what you would like to have as in full employment. So do you think staff are happy working for Bus Fan In? Is there more that could be done to improve the working life here? I think you'd have to ask the staff if I'm honest. There's always more that can be done. I agree with that. And we work hard with our colleagues. There's a well-being open door meeting on a regular basis. I think it's actually tomorrow. And we work quite closely with the union reps as well to improve the situation when issues are arisen. How long are you expecting this to be ongoing for? How long do you expect this disruption to potentially be occurring for? I think that predominantly is a result of how quick the recruitment process is. And colleagues in HR are supporting. Like I said, there's a list that's checked this morning. Some have been interviewed this morning, and I will continue that recruitment process as we go through. But if I'm open, I don't see the situation improving drastically over the next couple of weeks. But obviously what we've committed to do is to ensure that the public are aware of the situations every day. And how long does it take to train up a new bus driver? I take this as an interest personally for yourself. It depends on where your license holder or an non-licence holder. Non-licence holder obviously has to get that extra de-category with on their license. Now that, depending on the availability of test slots, could be anywhere between four and six weeks. A license holder, whether on Ireland or coming to the Isle of Man, obviously needs to change to a bank's license. If they haven't already got one and apply for a PPV process in the DBS check, that alone could be a couple of weeks. How we fill that space is to get the individual route learning, ticket training, etc. And ensuring that the customer services are obviously the level we expect on a day-to-day basis. For people using the buses, how are they able to best get the information about whether or not there's the route that they're planning to use is going to run? I would strongly advise, obviously, Facebook is a key process at the moment, find my bus, which is a web-based app. Also, that takes the feed from the ticket machine directly and gives you a map location for not only bus services, but horse tram, MER, etc. etc. That's out there. We have had a couple of bits of feedback that some of the services aren't showing. Also, if that's a situation, please report it back via public transport at gov.am. Just for those that are using Facebook and I know Facebook doesn't cover everybody, the way a process of updates works is we will highlight the initial post in yellow. I think it's yellow bells indicating a warning, and every time there's an update that the service has been covered, that will be up in a red sort of siren emoji or such. So people should be able to clearly understand what's changed within each of those posts. Thank you for making it to the end of the Manx Radio Newscast. You are obviously someone with exquisite taste. May I politely suggest you might want to subscribe to this and a wide range of Manx Radio podcasts at your favourite podcast provider, so our best bits will magically appear on your smartphone. Thank you! [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
