Hi-Ride

[Solo1]

He has 2 buses in previous ops livery but only 1 driver the owner .when dies he take his break as no gap

[Lukeee]

He has 2 buses in previous ops livery but only 1 driver the owner .when dies he take his break as no gap

At the end of his shift  ;)

[Kevin]

He has 2 buses in previous ops livery but only 1 driver the owner .when dies he take his break as no gap

Whenever and wherever he wants. As has been the case

[justlookingaround]

He got lucky anyway. Other Traffic Commissioners would have revoked him on the spot. And who could blame them? It'd be completely different if he had a spare driver to rely on when needed, as well as a whole load of other things.

Just need to see what this new timetable is like. Perhaps he should be giving himself a one hour lunch break so he can go do his business in town instead of missing out a journey. After all you can't do a full day's work without one.

[countryliner]

You have to remember that he is a one person bus operator. He does everthing 100% by himself so he is not going to be able to do everything that other larger bus operators can do. Whenever i have used the 40X it has always been on time and gone along the correct route. The fact that he has operated successfully and that his company has survived for such a long time shows that he is doing well and clearly knows what he is doing.

[winston]

You have to remember that he is a one person bus operator. He does everthing 100% by himself so he is not going to be able to do everything that other larger bus operators can do. Whenever i have used the 40X it has always been on time and gone along the correct route. The fact that he has operated successfully and that his company has survived for such a long time shows that he is doing well and clearly knows what he is doing.

Sorry that's no excuse!

It doesn't make a blind bit of difference if he's a one man band (it's his choice), I am a one man band & do everything myself (not in the bus industry). If you're a service provider, people aren't interested if you're on your own / off sick / need to pop in to town on some personal business. They just want you to provide the service that you've said you're going to. If he can't do everything himself, he needs to take on staff, if he's off sick / needs some time off, he needs to emply an agency driver. He can't register a service then run it as/when he can he feels like it.

Out of interest how many times a year do you use his 40X service?

[countryliner]

@Winston - I see what you mean. But i am sure that he only occasionally is not able to run the service. I doubt that it is a very regular occurance. I probably use the 40X on average around 8 to 12 times a year. If i remember correctly i believe that i used it 10 times during 2015.

[fleetline6477]

You have to remember that he is a one person bus operator. He does everthing 100% by himself so he is not going to be able to do everything that other larger bus operators can do. Whenever i have used the 40X it has always been on time and gone along the correct route. The fact that he has operated successfully and that his company has survived for such a long time shows that he is doing well and clearly knows what he is doing.

Whilst I agree that Mr. Pelington has to be commended for attempting to run his operation as a sole trader you cannot claim that he 'clearly knows what he is doing.' According to the report from the TC enquiry there were long-term errors in recording information on inspection records and quoting Mr. Pelington he didn't realise that he needed a driver CPC to drive his bus. This to me is evidence of somebody who 'clearly doesn't know what he is doing.'

[Tony]

@Winston - I see what you mean. But i am sure that he only occasionally is not able to run the service. I doubt that it is a very regular occurance. I probably use the 40X on average around 8 to 12 times a year. If i remember correctly i believe that i used it 10 times during 2015.

DVSA recorded an 85% fail rate when monitoring his service, so it is a regular occurance.

Your  comments about DVSA and the TC picking on small ops, a couple of figures for you.

In 2015 NXWM operated 98.7% of their registered mileage
Several garages achieved 100% MoT pass rate (industry average around 80%)

Perhaps that's why DVSA haven't called NXWM to a PI. I suspect the majority of the big groups have similar figures

[Westy]

DVSA recorded an 85% fail rate when monitoring his service, so it is a regular occurance.

Your  comments about DVSA and the TC picking on small ops, a couple of figures for you.

In 2015 NXWM operated 98.7% of their registered mileage
Several garages achieved 100% MoT pass rate (industry average around 80%)

Perhaps that's why DVSA haven't called NXWM to a PI. I suspect the majority of the big groups have similar figures

For an operator who has 40 to 50 years experience, in various guises, not counting municpal days, they should know how to run a bus service!

How the heck can you be relied on, if you are a one man band operation?

Even the company I work for (retail related) has an excellent support network for our shops.

Say for example, a store has a serious incident preventing normal trading, our support network can swing into action within a few hours.

If a serious incident happened at a NX garage, preventing normal operation, NX can pull buses from around the system within a few hours.

Arriva could, I suppose. Diamond presumbly.

I do hope the other smaller operators do have a back up  plan?

[countryliner]

@fleetline6477 - But if he did not know what he was doing then surely his company would not have survived for this long.

@Tony - Thanks for the info. But i have personally seen some large big group bus operators run early and skip out parts of bus routes and fail to operate certain journeys. So the large big group bus operators do all this but the DVSA and the TC never seem to do much about it.

@Westy - He has made efforts to have back up plans. For example he now has two vehicles (Y337 FJN / S453 CVV) in his bus fleet.

[Steveminor]

S453 isn't dda  so can't be used.

[Tony]

@Tony - Thanks for the info. But i have personally seen some large big group bus operators run early and skip out parts of bus routes and fail to operate certain journeys. So the large big group bus operators do all this but the DVSA and the TC never seem to do much about it.

Yes, big groups do fail to operate, will send buses off route for various reason, as I put NX Bus operated 98.7% of mileage, which means they didn't operate 1.3% of it, so quite a few buses over the year didn't run. A lot of that is down to factors out of NX's hands, Lots of mileage was missed on Thursday due to Birmingham's whole road network stopping for hours.

What you completely fail to understand is TC's will ask an operator why a bus is 'off-route, not operating, running early' if they see it, big operators, and good small operators will have every bit of it recorded, so when the TC asks will have a reasonable answer for the reason.

'I needed to go to the bank' is not a good reason.

No small operator has had his license revoked after being caught missing mileage or running early, that normally generates a fine which is multiplied by the number of discs that operator holds, so the penalty is exactly in proportion for whatever size of fleet is being operated.

Revocations are nearly always for running dangerous vehicles, or complete disregard to instructions or advise already given by the TC at a previous PI, and those are things big operators do not do

[fleetline6477]

@fleetline6477 - But if he did not know what he was doing then surely his company would not have survived for this long.

I agree that his company has survived a long time. During that time legislation about driver hours, VCR, CPC.. have changed considerably. If he hasn't kept himself up-to-date with new requirements and made appropriate changes to his practice then he clearly doesn't know what he is doing.

[countryliner]

@Steveminor - I see what you mean. I had always thought that he had probably converted S453 CVV to DDA compliant. Do you know if he has any plans to convert this bus to DDA compliant or to buy any additional vehicles to use when Y337 FJN is not available.

@Tony - I see your point. But the thing is the compliance rates might not always be accurate. For example the inspectors might check the buses when the operator is just having a bad week and are normally much more compliant. Also they could check the buses when an operator is just having a good week but are normally much less compliant. So it is not always going to be that accurate.

@fleetline6477 - It can be hard for some companies to keep up to date with all the changes to regulations and everything like that. As far as i am aware the DVSA do not go around informing every bus operator of every change that happens.