Good evening Skexis.Skexis wrote:@ burrumbus. The trouble with having shifts made up of just the smaller runs for midis would be that those runs are needed in order to pad out shifts operated by larger buses. Dunno how familiar you are with AdMet routes but here's an just one example where the small run at the start pads the rest of the day out to an acceptable length. If all those smaller runs were done by midis then either that shift would be too short or too long. Also having the larger buses only doing the longer routes would mean there would be too much dead time in between them.
Thank you for the example of the Southlink run sheet.
It is an efficient shift with little dead running and sensible turnarounds to hopefully enable on time operation.I would have thought that the shift may have operated a tad longer to the extent of enabling another trip and to make the drivers wage a bit better.
But to my way of thinking it still represents the complexity of bus rostering.First and foremost it covers operation in two different contract areas.If Southlink lose one or both of those contract areas in the upcoming tenders the work involved in disentangling the rosters would be considerable.
I would have thought there would be enough work in each contract area to be able to construct shifts just for those contract areas.I would imagine Lonsdale depot would be a very heavy peak hour orientated depot with a lot of broken shifts to cover those peak hour school and route trips.
The run sheet you showed had that shift working 5 different routes over that shift.Presumably drivers in both contract areas have to know every route in each contract area.That is very complex for a driver to remember.Many drivers just hate that aspect and prefer regular routes and regular ,predictable shifts.I have seen shifts in other large companies where up to 8 different route are operated.
I still believe that mini/midi buses can be easily introduced onto exclusive shifts with regular drivers.Your example just illustrates how complex bus rostering is in large companies.