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Post by busman on Aug 16, 2021 8:55:10 GMT
Bit of a personal request this one - who is the best person/team to contact with regard to school bus timings? Is it the operator or the black hole that is TfL customer services?
One of our local routes is hopelessly out of sync with a popular secondary school and parents (myself included) are driving rather than having kids risk arriving late or waiting 20 minutes for a return bus home.
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Post by SILENCED on Aug 16, 2021 9:10:57 GMT
Bit of a personal request this one - who is the best person/team to contact with regard to school bus timings? Is it the operator or the black hole that is TfL customer services? One of our local routes is hopelessly out of sync with a popular secondary school and parents (myself included) are driving rather than having kids risk arriving late or waiting 20 minutes for a return bus home. Best thing to do is talk to the school, they are supposed to coordinate timings with TfL
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Post by snowman on Aug 16, 2021 9:45:31 GMT
Bit of a personal request this one - who is the best person/team to contact with regard to school bus timings? Is it the operator or the black hole that is TfL customer services? One of our local routes is hopelessly out of sync with a popular secondary school and parents (myself included) are driving rather than having kids risk arriving late or waiting 20 minutes for a return bus home. Best thing to do is talk to the school, they are supposed to coordinate timings with TfL That’s the theory, but school is probably closed for holidays, and clearly the school and TfL are not on talking terms, otherwise wouldn’t be timing mismatch you talk about. TfL have made it rather difficult to talk to them as some phone numbers are not being answered, and not all desk phones are on diversion. That’s if anyone at the school actually has the best number to call, which they possibly don’t. If the timings of the school day are on the school website, then TfL could make a bit more effort to check that school bus extras actually make sense, it is more a once a year exercise not something that is onerous and done weekly.
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Post by cl54 on Aug 21, 2021 8:33:06 GMT
I live next door to my old school which was about to close when I bought my house.
During the school holiday TfL erected a new stop for the school's special route to use.
When the new term should have started the school journeys began again running empty. You would assume the drivers would have reported the lack of students.
As the buses continued I reported that the school had closed to TfL. The buses continued until half term.
When I first worked for London Transport in the 1970s locally based Area Traffic Managers were responsible for bus services in their area. They knew the locality and ensured services were properly managed.
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Post by greenboy on Aug 21, 2021 9:37:31 GMT
I live next door to my old school which was about to close when I bought my house. During the school holiday TfL erected a new stop for the school's special route to use. When the new term should have started the school journeys began again running empty. You would assume the drivers would have reported the lack of students. As the buses continued I reported that the school had closed to TfL. The buses continued until half term. When I first worked for London Transport in the 1970s locally based Area Traffic Managers were responsible for bus services in their area. They knew the locality and ensured services were properly managed. I suppose drivers and operators aren't going to complain about being paid to run empty buses but it's really no wonder TfL are in the mess they're in.
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Post by rogerout on Aug 26, 2021 21:16:45 GMT
I haven’t drove in London for about 5 years. I did occasionally do a few school bus runs. I’m sure I was told that as long as you don’t leave your departure time early, then don’t worry about the other timing points. Basically, leave on the time stated and just run the route. If the school children were all in, it was hard to be on time anyway. If the school wasn’t in, such as a teacher training day, we would get told to run the route or not by our controllers. If the school wasn’t in, we’d just run the bus pretty much empty and complete the mileage, but finish the route obviously earlier than scheduled. Not sure how it stands now with the operators and TFL.
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