Upcoming service changes in Merseyside

[CX06 EBK (Administrator)]

RE: Upcoming service changes in Merseyside
Barney, staffing issues in this industry haven't exactly changed over the past few years and will get no better when franchising comes in, especially if it follows a model whereby they put MORE buses on around the Christmas period - the amount of 'sickness' absentees at this time of year should tell you all you need to know. Staff in the bus industry deserve better than knowing a week before weather or not they'll be working a Christmas period or not especially as often at times you can see what you're doing three weeks in advance.

As for the acceptence of tickets on Boxing Day, I think you'll find most staff at Stagecoach will be ignoring that as it goes given the amount of stress they will be under for the lack of Arriva services anyway. Certainly not worth the argument with people who just simply won't understand why that is suddenly the case.

As for the actual Christmas Day services - it really sums Merseytravel up. This year will be the seventh year in a row they have ran two services in St Helens that don't run for the other 364 days in a year. Given they could have ran a 17 in place of these between St Helens and Widnes (so still serving St Helens Hospital) but haven't shows you how little they care and the passenger numbers on those services will reflect that.