01-26-2020, 11:12 PM
(01-25-2020, 03:47 AM)white_brian Wrote: The other issue is response times for drivers who need assistance, this will be the toughest one to solve. If there is an issue on a bus that requires a supervisor or assistance with a problem passenger, the GRT covers alot of ground within the region. The police are already stretched to thin, I know a few supervisors who work for the GRT and they are stretched thin as well
And that's part of the problem - GRT runs too darn lean. If a driver is sick, something happens and they have to leave early, rather than having a supervisor drive that bus a bit for a bit until an on-call driver can get in, they will just pull a bus from another route with no notice to fill in for the missing one. Quite often the route they pull from is the 302 and formerly the 200 because an hour long hole in a little-used suburban route with 0-5 impacted riders is apparently worse than a 20 minute hole in a heavily used express route and 40-80 impacted riders. The real time displays also still act as if the diverted bus is still on the route.
Same thing goes for when a bus breaks down. Instead of a mechanic driving another bus to the location, a supervisor gives them a ride to the breakdown and they decide whether the bus can be driven back to the barn or wait for a tow truck. Again, the real time displays show as if there is no hole.
This is also why it takes GRT so long to get shuttle busses running when there has been an accident involving a tram. They wait for a bus to get to the end of the line where they would switch directions (or even change routes like the 8 & 12 do) and then those busses head to the ION station to play shuttle. (Leaving a hole with real time info not updated, yadda yadda.) What they should be doing is two supervisors need to to be hopping in a bus the minute ION central command tells them of an accident, get to opposite ends of the gap and shuttle for an hour or so until the on-call drivers can get in and take over, without diverting any busses.