THE TOWN’S bus provider has travelled a bumpy road of late, with bosses navigating their way through complaints after services failed to turn up, broke down and got lost at the hands of their drivers.
Paul McNamara, business development manager at Diamond Bus, puts the majority of the service’s issues down to the sheer number of schoolchildren in Redditch and a lack of drivers.
“There is an inordinately large number of schoolchildren for a town and network of this size,” he said. “We have a fleet of 42 buses and six or seven of those are used for schoolchildren – this is a high proportion from which we are not making much money.
“We get around £60 from filling a bus with schoolchildren who are charged around £1.20 to travel, yet it costs more than £100 to send a bus out.
“People don’t realise how expensive it is to provide buses.”
He added the majority of incidents which lead to complaints have tended to happen during the school run, adding very few actually take place between 9.30am and 3pm.
Yet the main rub is that of the drivers themselves.
“The major issue is recruitment,” Mr McNamara said. “People don’t seem to want to be bus drivers, individuals with those skills tend to use them in other employments such as lorry driving where they don’t have to deal with the public or schoolchildren.
“It’s the first job you leave and one you take as a last resort.”
He added Diamond is now taking on recruits without a bus licence, providing they have customer care skills experience, and training them along with encouraging drivers to take on overtime – but not demanding they do so.
Complaints have rained in since September, leading to apologies for sloppy service from ex-Rotala director David Squire and Redditch operations manager Andrew Fish.
Then came promises of eight additional buses would be operating in Redditch from December 1, with more coming in 2016.
But Mr McNamara explained no vehicles were due to arrive in the town until January.
The two vehicles scheduled for December were actually earmarked for another depot but he assured The Standard one bus would be arriving in Redditch this month and the remaining seven in February.
He added despite complaints, the company is actually carrying more passengers than last year and even put on a service on Boxing Day.
A review of services will be held in April or May where some changes will be made in the hope of generating more revenue and more opportunities for passengers. Ticket price rises are also in the pipeline.
In addition a smartcard system will be rolled out in 2016 – allowing passengers to purchase tickets online.
