North West Bus Service Changes due to Coronavirus outbreak

[knutstransport]

RE: North West Bus Service Changes due to Coronavirus outbreak

(20/03/2020 16:18)wirralbus Wrote:  Please this is a case of life and death , can we stop bickering about what Arriva have and havent done , the information will be made available as soon as possible.

Do be advised that these timetables may become obsolete as the situation goes on and further alterations may be needed .

We could even on public health grounds end up with no bus service at all and this is not scaremongering .

The transport industry needs to be careful in their approach to this.

Cutting routes where there's no viable alternative may mean essential workers, like care home workers and the receptionist at a doctor's surgery cannot get to work.

Reducing services may mean a higher average passenger number on the services which do run which could increase the chance of the virus spreading if one person carrying the virus travels on a bus.

Promising to run as many services as possible and then cancelling some at short notice due to drivers taking ill or having to self-isolate may mean people find themselves out of their homes for longer than they plan - increasing their risk of catching the virus.

One thing I've seen in shops (which I haven't yet heard any bus operators say) is asking customers to pay using contactless, unless they are unable to do so e.g. transaction amount too high or they don't have a contactless card.

Another thing operators need to consider is in the current circumstances it doesn't matter how many footprints you can see on the floor or how much mud has sprayed on to the exterior of the bus, in comparison to how much it matters than the things both drivers and passengers touch (like the poles and stop buttons) are regularly cleaned properly - in an ideal world this would be done when vehicles are sat around out-of-use between services.