Unseasonal Snow

For those snowy parts of Britain suffering this week, it’s rather ironic that on the one day we look forward to snow—Christmas Day—none was generally forecast. Yet, this week, snow and frost have been significant factors in messing things up, even down to the possible post-Christmas arrival of internet ordered Christmas gifts and fare. Santa is not pleased.

We “enjoyed” heavy snow last February. Then, we argued that the best time for a heavy, sustained snowfall was indeed late evening on Christmas Eve. The worst time is mid-morning, because:

• People are at work but leave early
• Cars then clog strategic bus routes
• Schools panic and request transport home, like, *now*, irrespective as to whether garages have vehicles or drivers in the right places
• Buses increasingly get out of position and this compounds timetable chaos caused by an overloaded road network
• Waiting passengers become exasperated
• Revenue reduces sharply as costs increase, as passengers melt away and motorists offer lifts
• Parts of the network become increasingly cut off by snow

With the internet and increasingly Twitter seemingly available just about everywhere these days, here are ideal media to get short messages out quickly. Though First recently abandoned its social media experiment in Bath, it is now using Twitter in the south west and in west Yorkshire. There were web snow bulletins from First Essex. Other operators use Facebook to get messages out quickly.

When First Group placed this Christmasy slide on its website, it could barely have considered the real consequences of this week's snow...

In a post on Tuesday, First Group’s Leon Daniels encapsulated things from an operations perspective, as follows:

“Whilst there is some merit in ‘pressing on’ through thick and thin at snail’s pace, and ‘getting through’, the truth is that your passengers have largely disappeared—preferring not to stay out in the awful conditions. If you are not careful, you end up with the fleet damaged and suffering from the effects of freezing up, and the staff exhausted. When the thaw comes and everyone wants to get back on your services to go to work or shopping, you are on your knees with too few serviceable buses and not enough staff.”

One other very noticeable side effect where services keep going is the grimy state of the buses themselves. All the Big Five take a pride in their vehicles’ appearances but this changes during exceptional conditions. Frozen garage water lines & bus washes plus road salt and slush gradually spread filth from behind the wheels to obscure windows. You’d think passengers would be forgiving but, in my experience, they tend to wonder why the bus side isn’t as clean as the windscreen.

It’s interesting that under these conditions various highways authorities usually get a roasting. Here, in the media’s mind, the bus service and winter salt spreading seem similarly aligned. Most authorities do an excellent job at keeping most strategic & bus routes open most of the time though, like bus operators, they cannot work miracles when the snow comes down faster than their teams can shift it, or when rain falls on already cold roads (salt treated or not), as seemed to happen in Cornwall on Tuesday, claiming the lives of two travellers on a Williams Travel, Camborne excursion.

Meanwhile, services were suspended in both Bournemouth & Southampton for a time on Wednesday, during one of the busiest days of the year. First pulled out, after four crashes. Transdev Yellow Buses did the same, following rain on frozen roads causing black ice, especially on untreated residential streets. Both parties were criticised for their safety efforts which, passengers claimed, caused distress for elderly and disabled passengers. In TYB's case, the decision to come off was at 0745 for about 40 minutes, well before most pensioners would be travelling, with free travel not due to kick in for some 1¾ hours.