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| (257633) | |
Suffolk Transit headways unfair... |
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Posted by caine515 on Thu Mar 22 14:24:55 2012 I've noticed that certain Suffolk Transit Bus Routes have a gap in service durig midday when drivers take lunch break(Route S20,1A,1B,2A,2B)-is this normal? I've been on the S20 and the 2B and im surprised of the two hour headway. wouldn't it make sense to put a bus there to cover when driver is out to lunch? I know NICE,NJTransit and MTA wouldn't do a two hour gap. |
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| (257635) | |
Re: Suffolk Transit headways unfair... |
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Posted by BusMgr on Thu Mar 22 15:51:15 2012, in response to Suffolk Transit headways unfair..., posted by caine515 on Thu Mar 22 14:24:55 2012. If the labor contract requires a lunch break (and not all do), it can get very expensive to provide service during that lunch break given the minimum pay required for piece of work, time to get to and from the route, etc. Moreover, at lunch time in an auto-centric locale, there are likely to be very few passengers inconvenienced by the gap in service. |
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| (257647) | |
Re: Suffolk Transit headways unfair... |
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Posted by merrick1 on Thu Mar 22 20:44:14 2012, in response to Suffolk Transit headways unfair..., posted by caine515 on Thu Mar 22 14:24:55 2012. One upon a time the Q19 had a lunch break gap. I think there was one bus and one driver assigned to the route. |
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| (257655) | |
Re: Suffolk Transit headways unfair... |
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Posted by mac5689 on Thu Mar 22 21:36:02 2012, in response to Suffolk Transit headways unfair..., posted by caine515 on Thu Mar 22 14:24:55 2012. I believe its probably for a lunch break, though if the contracting company schedules a driver for a lunch break at the time I don't know. |
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| (257657) | |
Re: Suffolk Transit headways unfair... |
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Posted by Henry R32 #3730 on Thu Mar 22 22:55:19 2012, in response to Re: Suffolk Transit headways unfair..., posted by BusMgr on Thu Mar 22 15:51:15 2012. Depending on the span of service for the bus company it can be somewhat seamless to provide lunch breaks...Mornings and afternoons typically require more drivers than middays. I know of a bus line that manages to work around not only a lunch requirement, but the lunch break *and 15 minute breaks* have to begin/end at the depot... the solution was a system of handoffs which occurred as drivers go on/off break. In the evenings they drop the handoff system and simply choose to miss two non-consecutive intervals. |
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| (257663) | |
Re: Suffolk Transit headways unfair... |
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Posted by mac5689 on Fri Mar 23 01:06:24 2012, in response to Re: Suffolk Transit headways unfair..., posted by Henry R32 #3730 on Thu Mar 22 22:55:19 2012. CBS Lines, use to allow the drivers to have lunch when the bus schedules had long breaks. (except for the S58 whose drivers got hour long breaks, and one S60 run where they switched drivers because that particular run would have ended up doing the Night Loop and the switch was done because the first driver of the run started early in the morning)Inter County from what I heard also gave their drivers lunch breaks when the routes schedules allowed. To my knowledge the remaining operators don't seem to schedule lunch breaks, and use the long breaks for either driver changes or driver and bus changes. |
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| (257669) | |
Re: Suffolk Transit headways unfair... |
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Posted by RailBus63 on Fri Mar 23 09:17:33 2012, in response to Suffolk Transit headways unfair..., posted by caine515 on Thu Mar 22 14:24:55 2012. I know NICE,NJTransit and MTA wouldn't do a two hour gap.You're comparing apples to watermelons. Those large agencies serve very densely-populated areas with high transit ridership (not all of Nassau or New Jersey are like this, of course, but the areas where NJT and NICE have the bulk of their ridersghip are). Suffolk Transit covers a large geographic area with very dispersed pockets of transit demand. It's more difficult (and often less productive) for them to assign a bus and driver to relieve other operators for meal breaks. I also believe that riders who are used to dealing with hourly service are far more attuned to gaps in service and will work around a single two-hour gap in the middle of the day. |
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