A North East bus operator plagued by cancellations admits it underestimated the scale of its driver shortages.
A boss from Arriva told councillors on Thursday that the firm had expected post-Covid staffing issues to be a “short term problem” and had been “too ambitious” with its timetables, causing frustration for passengers left waiting for buses that never turned up. Richard McGowan, the bus company’s head of commercial in the North East, said Arriva had “learned lessons” from the major disruption to services over recent months and would adopt less frequent, but more reliable timetables to reduce the risk of people being left stranded at bus stops.
At a North East Joint Transport Committee meeting in Gateshead, Mr McGowan said Arriva services had suffered the most from driver shortages compared to the region’s other big operators, Stagecoach and Go North East. He told the committee that Arriva had been 25 drivers short in Tyne and Wear in the run up to Christmas, though is now only five down due to an influx of agency staff over recent weeks.
