When ridership and revenue drops on scheduled services in competitive markets, the remedies often immediately put on the table are:

1. Reduce schedules – to take cost out, and/or

2. Reduce prices – to encourage demand, or

3. Increase prices – to get more yield per passenger and total revenue

However the actual outcomes from such reactions may not be as expected as demonstrated here:

We need to look at the market as a whole to fully understand what is happening and where we stand in that ecosystem.

Your shortfalls may be due to the market shrinking (think pandemic). It may be due to your piece of the market shrinking, but the market as a whole may actually be growing. Cutting schedules in this scenario would potentially be a square peg solution to plugging a round hole - it isn't the core of the issue. Often it's a combination of many things - changing competitor capacities, changing market size and changing fares.

Not understanding these will leave you shooting blindfolded in your response.

So let's get started:

Your market share info card

You need to get out and see who you are competing against in your market, how many passengers they're carrying and what the fare levels are like. Here's an example of what can look like:

Survey Timing

There are a few guidelines to follow in surveying, illustrated in the table below. Consistency and frequency in observation activities are very important. The aim is to generate trends as well as snapshots.

The ‘Start Early’ guideline merits further context. I’ve seen companies 'panic-survey' when they’ve already hit the ‘intensive care’ status. While better late than never, you’ll only get a snapshot in time, lacking the context of whether your piece of the pie has been changing over time and/or the size of the pie overall.

What and When to Survey?

On survey days, you do not want gaps in the days observations. It’s not ok to skip the lunch hour so your data collector can eat – find a way to cover the gap. Consistency is key, and even more so when it comes to comparing one month to the next. The table below summarizes the 'whats' and 'whens':

When you've collected a weekends worth of observations, you’ll then be able to build out some simple analysis such as size of the market and share of capacity in the market for that point in time.

• Reducing schedules, or even exiting may be wiser where a market overall is contracting and your slice of it and fares are already low.

• Reducing pricing may be considered if the market large, your fares are high, but your share of the pie is low.

• Increasing pricing and/or schedules may be merited if you’re enjoying good market share and it’s consistent or improving across multiple months.

So, should you drop prices, increase fares, reduce schedules? You can’t really answer these questions if you don’t have the market data. So get collecting now!

Worked Example:

In this example, we’ve been consistently conducting market shares for 3 months in a market. Each color represents an operator in a particular market, of which there are 4 in total. We looked at Jan, Feb and March 2024.

We used our collected data to develop the following comparative metrics:

• % of Total Pax – The share of passengers this month vs other operators observed

• % of Departures – The share of departures (or capacity) offered.

We're ignoring fare comparisons for now, but these are certainly a major consideration in what we do going forward after analysing the information.

A value greater than 1.0 indicates that you are carrying a higher percentage of passengers compared to the capacity you offer. This suggests that your services are more popular and/or efficient in filling seats than the market average. This is almost always good – assuming your fares are at acceptable contribution levels. You're carrying more than your fair share of supply!

A value less than 1 indicates that you are carrying fewer passengers relative to the capacity you offer, suggesting underutilization (compared to the market average), or lower preference for your services compared to the market average. Cost and revenue need to be considered of course, but so too are the trends of the numbers:

The 4 different companies are experiencing slightly differing trends. Company A may very well choose to do nothing with their information, given their relatively strong position. Companies C and D need to review and act, particularly if they’re not profitable at their current fare levels. Company B is trending in the right direction, albeit slowly, so may also take actions that lean more towards the marketing and pricing end, rather than cut schedules.

Of course, there are many more interpretations that can be taken from the information above, but the key is setting up the process, keep the data gathering consistent, and looking at the stories being told by the data. You’ll then be far better informed to make sustainable decisions within your organization and not default to cut, hike or drop.

In this piece, I want to go over some “Pricing 101’s”, which may be a useful refresher for charter finance and sales staff.

We have safety fundamentals (vehicle and driver non-negotiables), we have service delivery fundamentals (clean, punctual, quality equipment and drivers), and in much the same way, we have, or should have, pricing fundamentals.

I do a lot on inventory management and pricing and I frequently pull out my notes from years ago to remind myself of pricing fundamentals. They apply across all aspects of bus pricing operations, but we’ll focus on charter today. Let’s get into it.

First, what is pricing?

In charter bus, it’s the price charged for providing transportation. There are several categories of pricing types – cost plus, value-based, dynamic, mileage based and a few others. We’ll look at these four here, as they’ll have relevance for most charter businesses.

Cost Plus:

This calculates prices based on operational costs plus a markup for profit.

Example Calculation:

Driver cost (hours x wage rate)

+ Vehicle cost (mileage cost x miles)

+ Overhead allocation (tricky, but could be based on annual overhead divided by annual expected miles x miles)

+ Target margin.

Advantages:

• It ensures that costs are covered and it’s easy to explain internally and externally as a ‘fair’ price.

Disadvantages:

• It may not bear any resemblance to what the market can bear or is willing to pay.

• You may underprice in high demand periods (leave money on the table), or over-price (trying to cover all costs, when it may make more sense to not attempt to cover all overhead allocated costs).

Useful When:

• You’re unsure of how to price but want to price conservatively.

Value Based Pricing:

Value based is a perceived value of the service to the customer. It’s more of a ‘what’s the value of what we’re providing’, irrespective of cost.

Example Calculation:

• The value-based price of a bus with wifi, satellite tv, power outlets and extra legroom may be higher for transporting a tour group, but lower for a field trip of school kids.

Advantages:

• It can help align prices with the perceived customer value and/or willingness to pay – which can get you a much higher price than, say, cost-base pricing.

Disadvantages:

• It’s a difficult one to put into numbers, often requiring trial and error, and success and failure to learn the value across different market segments.

Useful When:

• You’re trying to differentiate yourself in the market, although you’ll need strong marketing to deliver your messages.

Competition or Market Based Pricing:

This form of pricing is based on competitors’ pricing. Typically, a charter company will have a generalization of “always x% more or less than Company ABC”.

In some respects, it employs a little value-based thinking into the equation, like "we’ve newer equipment, so always stay a little above company abc”.

Example Calculation:

• Simple – Company ABC's rate plus or minus x% for the same job.

Advantages:

• Easy to determine and change and easy to place yourself as a premium or discount player in the market.

Disadvantages:

• Too much reliance on competitor pricing can result in a downward spiral, or a race to the bottom as the market players undercut one another to keep market share. Margins can suffer when moving down. Sales can suffer if moving up too quick.

Useful When:

• You’re in a highly competitive market with little differentiation (commoditized market), but the method should be used in conjunction with dynamic pricing to ensure high demand periods are monetized correctly.

Dynamic Pricing:

This is pricing usually done in real-time and based on demand, availability and booking momentum. It typically involves some degree of automation and information gathering to establish the rate of change in inventory (how quick is a day selling), what the market prices are (how much are others charging) and what is causing the spikes. At it's very basic, it's a set of automated 'if' and 'then' rules.

Advantages:

• It can maximize revenue during peak demand periods and conversely offer competitive prices (like those minimal contributing rates mentioned in cost-plus pricing above) during quieter times.

• Set up correctly, it 'catches' anomalies and can quickly adjust pricing in response automatically (for example, at this time of year, if you're in the Washington DC charter market, and don't follow the Cherry Blossom predictions, you'll be glad of dynamic pricing kicking up rates as bookings surge just as those 'full bloom' dates are released).

Disadvantages:

• Customers may resent the surge effect at peak periods – although the like of airlines, and more recently the Ubers and Lyfts out there have made this a more common and accepted practice these days.

• For larger companies, dynamic pricing can require sophisticated software and analytics, particularly for larger fleets. I saw a demo of The Bus Network software capabilities recently which is tackling this challenge head-on. I'm sure there are other products out there. In the absence of those, you can make some decent starts and use-cases by building some clever Excel spreadsheets for smaller volumes.

Useful When:

• As demand fluctuates, the pricing formula can ramp up or down the pricing, reducing overpricing in quieter periods and seizing opportunities of higher demand early by maximizing revenue with higher prices.

These are just a review of the pricing types out there, but there are also some pricing strategies worth a brief mention:

• The '99' effect. $999 feels much more than a dollar less than $1000.

• Bundling - maybe you charge a higher than market rate because other products and services are included (free cancellation/amendment, no surcharges for wifi, tv, food/beverage etc).

• Market segmentation - different prices to different markets (e.g. instant quote and book online may price differently than a sales agent managed booking.

There are dozens of books on the topic and well worth a read. My latest read is Game Changer by Jean-Manuel Izaret (JMI) and Arnab Sinha (Wiley, 2023). It's easy to read and not overly technical.

Finishing Up

A number of years ago, we invited Tim J Smith, owner of Wiglaf Pricing, to run a week-long workshop at Coach USA on pricing. We were joined by colleagues from sister and partner companies at the time from the UK, Poland, Sweden and New Zealand, all involved in bus operations.

At the time, all companies were very much married to competitor prices in their geographies as a means to setting their own. Tim regularly throughout the week, asked the question of competitors prices:

‘Why do you care?’

To the point that we realized that many of our competitors were winging it. When we began taking a more deliberate approach with other pricing types particularly the value based and dynamic approaches, we quickly found ourselves well out of sync with competitors at times, but gained immensely in market share, revenue generation, asset utilization, and increased contribution dollars towards overheads.

As you lead your charter operations, ask yourself, or your team, every once in a while:

• What are the pricing types and strategies out there?

• What are we doing today?

• Have we reviewed the pros and cons of each recently?

• Have we overlooked other strategies?

• Do I care what the competition is doing, and if so, why?

Like a frequent oil change on your bus will keep its engine healthier for longer, so to will a frequent check in on your charter pricing strategy keep your revenue opportunities from slipping. Good luck!

This week, I aim to provide an introductory overview of how ChatGPT can assist with bus scheduling.

During a recent demonstration at the American Bus Association Marketplace, attended by a group specializing in intercity line-runs, I suggested exploring the optimal departure time for a bus to maximize its passenger carrying potential. This article summarizes that presentation.

Background

Many of the companies run scheduled services that operate just one trip in each direction per day, covering very large distances, often over 400 miles. Some stops are large cities, while others are much smaller urban areas.

The start location of a trip is typically determined by where the operator had a physical base, and not necessarily by the size of the city.

The question posed was "what's the best time for the bus to start this trip?"

To start, we know (or at least assume) that ridership is a function of:

• Population (bigger cities = bigger potential market).

• Departure time (daytime departures will generally pick up more customers than departures between 1am and 4am).

There are other inputs of course, but I'll stick to these to get going and we'll look at adding the other inputs later.

Our Route - Harborview to Starfield

Using a bunch of random locations, populations and journey times, we can begin to formulate a route. I kept the total run time compliant for one US based driver to do the shift, assuming minimal deadhead time.

Population and Travel Time

The details of population and run times for our fictitious route are presented in the table below. The start city population, Harborview, isn't the biggest city, but it is where our bus company is located.

On this route, the bus will end at Starfield where it will have access to cleaning and refuel only. The biggest population center is almost 2 hours into the route from Harborview, with Riverrun and Starfield being the the next biggest as the last two places served.

Departure Time Weighting

Next, we know that certain times of day stand a better chance of picking up customers than others. Taking a real-world example, a 2pm Indianapolis to Chicago run is more likely to pick up customers than a 2am run.

Let's make a table to reflect these differences. A value of 100 means max customer potential at that time. A value near 0 means no potential. These values are anecdotal and will vary depending on market and distance from origin and destination:

With these 3 pieces of information (population, run time and departure time weighting), we can attempt our first query with ChatGPT.

The Query (or Prompt):

The query quality is important to direct ChatGPT in the area you need. Here's what I used:

• I'm an intercity bus operator who operates one trip per day in each direction of the list of cities I provide in the following tables. [Copy/paste the tables]

• The first table has the sequential list of cities, their populations and journey times to the next city.

• The second table has weightings that need to be considered for the fact that not all departure times are equal.

• Using this information and assume I want to optimize for maximum passenger carrying potential, provide a schedule in both directions.

The more constraints or parameters that are listed, the less likely GPT is going to be successful at providing an output at least in the first couple of rounds.

Breaking it down into smaller incremental steps may increase the chance of success.

The Analysis:

Assuming we get a good hit, we see ChatGPT generate the thought process - and it makes reasonable sense. Here is the initial commentary I got with the above prompts:

For the outbound trip, we would aim to pass through Eagle's Crest, Thornhill, Riverrun, and Starfield during the peak hours, as they are the most populous. To do this, we'll work backward from the peak time to determine the latest possible departure time from Harborview.

For the inbound trip, we'll do the reverse, starting from Starfield and aiming to pass through the populous cities during the peak time frame.

(Note the GPT output above may not be visible on the emailed version of the LinkedIn newsletter (I'm not quite sure why). Consider clicking through the newsletter to view on your web browser.)

GPT continues to come up its optimized solution as follows:

Given that the peak window is 4 hours long, we should aim to start the outbound trip around 6:20 AM to ensure we're traveling through the most populous cities during the peak times. This allows for travel through most cities during the 12:00 - 16:00 window, which has the highest value of 100.

For the inbound trip, if we want to pass through the most populous cities during the 16:00 - 20:00 window (which has a value of 90), we need to consider the 6 hours and 30 minutes of travel time. To optimize for passenger potential, we would want to start the inbound trip at Starfield around 9:30 AM.

Let's draft the schedules based on these starting times and the travel times between cities. 

Here are the optimized schedules:
City	Departure Time
Starfield	9:30
Riverrun	10:15
Frostvale	11:15
Galeport	12:05
Thornhill	12:50
Sunspire	13:35
Ironforge	14:25
Eagle's Crest	15:10
Mistwood	15:55
Harborview      16:45

City	Departure Time
Harborview	6:20
Mistwood	7:10
Eagle's Crest	7:55
Ironforge	8:40
Sunspire	9:30
Thornhill	10:15
Galeport	11:00
Frostvale	11:50
Riverrun	12:50
Starfield       13:35

It's a decent starting point. There were some generalizations made (picking the biggest cities to fall within the best time bands, and assuming the rest would fall into place). But this is still a far better educated guess than "I'll start the trip at 6am".

Refinements:

You might want to ask ChatGPT for more information, like:

• "Provide a visual representation of how you get to this schedule". GPT will often generate basic graphs or diagrams illustrating the computation.

• Re-optimize instead of using generalizations for big populations and best departure times. "Please optimize for all locations across all times and provide the optimal journey start time." This would be useful if in doubt that method taken is not sufficient.

• "What are the limitations of the method used to come up with this solution?" We don't know what we don't know. Ask ChatGPT to warn you of the limitations of this particular optimization. Ask it to regenerate in a way that reduces those limitations.

• "What instructions could improve the optimization of the schedule?" Particularly if you're not data savvy, this may help you to request a more stronger constructed schedule.

Taking it further:

While I used population, duration and departure time as factors to consider, there are others. You may want a schedule that maximizes revenue versus maximizes passenger counts. Issues such as arrival time at destination and differences in cities where people are more likely to take a bus are also important factors to consider.

You might create additional tables and ask GPT to consider these. For example:

While I could demonstrate almost no limit of possibilities and tweaks, each company will have different priorities. I would encourage you to play around. You don't need to be technical. You don't need to be apologetic for putting in a bad prompt. You can tell it that it didn't give you what you were expecting and it might ask questions to help refine your query.

Beyond the intercity schedule

While I've had some success in generating 'optimal' schedules using ChatGPT, the more traditional scheduling tasks of bus blocking, run-cutting and roster generation tend to push it over the edge, particularly when you go beyond a couple of buses in peak vehicle requirements (PVR).

For transit scheduling (higher frequency routes, PVR's etc.) I've not been able to get far with ChatGPT. The traditional electronic scheduling tools provided by the like of Optibus , Trapeze Group or GIRO have at their core the algorithms and power to run thousands of iterations in a short time with dozens of parameters, rules and limitations applied. ChatGPT doesn't come close to being able to consider all these at once. You'll see mostly due to time-outs, which I presume, is for the processing needed to generate the schedulers products.

However ChatGPT can still help with solution development that use the outputs of scheduling software. A few examples include:

• Generating a schedule of cleaners, fuellers based on bus run-in and run-out times.

• Help with staff planning to get to the peak driver requirement for an upcoming roster / service increase.

• Help with generating a vacation roster for the year.

• Help with deciding when to put ground support (what's the best 8 hours to have ground staff active, given buses per hour, passengers per hour etc) on the ground.

Overall, ChatGPT can help you get started with the crossroads of data and scheduling - particularly for non-data oriented folk. It can help present outcomes, constraints and challenges in plain language. It's a low cost way of getting acquainted with scheduling challenges which may give you a better steer on what exactly you may need for your business beyond ChatGPT in terms of scheduling capabilities.

Nevertheless, I hope this has given you some food for thought in how, beyond language generation, ChatGPT can take numbers and data and help unlock the potential of these in your transit and intercity business.

There's no shortage of material on using ChatGPT for a myriad of tasks. In this first installment of a two-part series, I aim to highlight a selection of examples specifically related to busing, highlighting how ChatGPT can assist with some common tasks that are customer-facing.

From improving communication with passengers to improving the quality-of-service inquiry response, we’ll explore examples of practical applications of this technology in improving the efficiency and quality of bus services. Here I took 3 examples:

1. Generating a service cancellation notification for a snowstorm.

2. Moving of a bus stop location.

3. Responding to a customer complaint.

I need an email/notification to customers cancelling service due to an upcoming snowstorm:

The Prompt:

• I'm a bus operator.

• We have snowstorms coming up resulting in the cancellation of services.

• Provide an email to customers informing them of this.

• We will honor requests for refunds for unused tickets - just hit reply and provide the details.

• Keep the message to about 100 words.

• Follow my companies' tone which is professional, authentic, smart and quirky.

The Output:

❄️ Service Update: Snowstorm Alert & Cancellation Notice ❄️

Dear Valued Riders,

We hope this message finds you warm and safe. Due to the upcoming snowstorm, we're putting the brakes on our services to ensure everyone's safety. We understand the inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your understanding.

If you have unused tickets during this period, worry not! We're all about making things right. Simply hit 'reply' with your ticket details, and we'll sort out your refund, no snowflakes attached.

Thank you for choosing us for your journeys. Stay cozy, and let's weather the storm together — quickly and safely.

Warm regards,

As instructed, the tone is lighthearted but also emphasizes a focus on safety. Omitting the smart and quirky requests will give you a more rigid message:

Due to the forecasted snowstorms, we regret to inform you that all bus services will be cancelled until further notice. The safety of our passengers and staff is our top priority during these severe weather conditions.

We understand the inconvenience this may cause and will honor requests for refunds for any unused tickets. Please reply to this email with your ticket details to process your refund.

Thank you for your understanding and support. Stay safe, and we look forward to serving you again soon.

Where you end up on tone is a matter of preference. Always check the content and tweak the prompts and regenerate. I made no mention of the duration of cancellations, but the output suggested "services will be cancelled until further notice", whereas the reality is that the services were likely being cancelled for a more known amount of time that could have been communicated.

We need to move a bus stop one block south due to planned construction.

The Prompt:

• I'm a bus operator.

• The northbound bus stop at Main and High Street is relocating one block south to outside the visitors center at Main and Cross Streets.

• I need an advisory to post on our website to inform customers of this.

• Please prompt me for any other information needed.

• Keep the message to about 50 words.

• Follow my companies' tone with is professional, authentic, detailed and authoritative.

The output:

Subject: Important Update: Northbound Bus Stop Relocation

Attention Riders: Starting [Insert Date], the northbound bus stop at Main and High Street will move one block south to Main and Cross Streets, outside the visitors center. This change aims to improve your commuting experience. Thank you for adjusting with us.

For more details, please visit our website.

Safe travels,
[Your Bus Company Name]

This is rigid, and while not off point, makes for a rather mechanical message. Regenerating the message to be more conversational in tone may yield something a little friendlier.

You may want to also make a tweet for social media about this change, in which case you'd ask ChatGPT to regenerate using a message suitable for a tweet:

• Please generate a message suitable as a tweet

🚍 Bus Stop Update: The northbound stop at Main & High is moving! 🚧 Find us one block south at Main & Cross, outside the Visitors Center. Effective immediately. Thanks for adjusting with us! #BusStopMove #TravelUpdate

Unprompted, the output generated emojis and hashtags, which you may want to keep or remove.

Responding to a customer complaint.

I would not recommend using ChatGPT to ingest and then write the response to a customer complaint. ChatGPT is designed to generate responses based on a wide range of inputs and does not specialize in any single domain.

Constructing a thoughtful, personalized response to each customer complaint is best practice in customer service.

You may have automations like those provided by Netomi for example, which allows you to train software to automate email and chat responses. These kind of specialized systems offer more precise, context-aware responses due to their targeted training.

However, you may find it useful to have ChatGPT check that your response addresses the complaint and to check for flow, grammar etc.

Let's take an example:

The Prompt:

• Here is a complaint that my bus company received and my response. Please check that my response reads ok and that the complaint has been sufficiently addressed.

The complaint:

• Your #5 bus was late again for 5 out of 5 days this week at the Shopping Plaza heading towards town. In addition, your driver was rude and shouted at passengers to stop talking on their cell phones as it was distracting his driving. When I sat on my seat and got up to get off, I discovered my pants stuck to the seat by some gum. I was forced to go back home as I was unable to go to work. My pants are ruined from your dirty bus and I am now $50 out of pocket as I need to replace them. I am getting quite annoyed with the quality of your service and expect to be compensated for the damage to my clothes, or I will take the matter to the cities transportation department.

Our response:

• We sincerely apologize for the late running of our service over the past two weeks. Upon investigation, emergency roadworks before your stop have led to a bus lane closure and services have been experiencing delays as a result. We expect reliability to improve going forward and hope that your experience will return to the high quality we expect, which has been clearly lacking of late. Thank you for taking the time to write. We look forward to serving you again soon.

ChatGPT:

Your response addresses the issue of the bus delays well by explaining the cause and assuring improvement in service. However, it lacks acknowledgment and resolution for the other significant parts of the complaint: the driver's rudeness, the gum incident, and the request for compensation for the damaged clothing.

Chat went on to give a 'revised response' that addressed the items missed in my initial attempt at a response, but made some assumptions that may not have been correct, and should not be offered as a response if the company did not, in fact, execute the actions described:

...We have addressed this matter with our staff to ensure that our buses are thoroughly cleaned and that all our drivers uphold the highest standards of professionalism and courtesy...

...We apologize for the shortcomings in the service you received. We are taking immediate steps to address these issues to ensure they do not happen again...

If you are taking steps, then ok. But if you are not, don't lie!

Lastly, always remove any personally identifiable information before creating the query.

This is quite a small selection of customer-facing uses for ChatGPT, which focuses on using AI to generate text output for customer facing scenarios. As you play around with prompting, you'll get a feel for what works and what doesn't. It can be a powerful tool for creating informational content, but I'd shy away from using it for personalized communications.

In the second installment of my series on ChatGPT in Busing, I will explore how ChatGPT can be leveraged for bus planning and scheduling applications. We'll delve into ChatGPT's ability to process data, numbers, and time, demonstrating its potential to create optimal schedules. Additionally, I'll show how ChatGPT can address common scheduling challenges, assisting in efficient route planning

.

However, with 2024 right around the corner, companies whose financial year matches the calendar year are not only planning and budgeting but also reflecting.

This article explores two aspects that should be top of mind:

• Service Planning

• Driver Planning

1 - Service Planning:

Most operators typically fall into one or more of the following categories: Scheduled, Contracted, or Charter, each with its own factors to consider for the upcoming year:

Scheduled Services:

A review of 2023’s passenger count data, revenue per mile, and fare expectations will guide decisions on mileage enhancements, reductions, reallocations, or eliminations.

Take a moment to examine any forthcoming changes in the macro environment. For instance, what is the outlook for fuel prices? Do you anticipate congestion charging to impact your numbers? To what degree?

Constructing a few 'what-if' scenarios, accounting for revenue or passenger counts falling 10, 15, or 25% below expectations, can be instrumental in understanding the potential impact on overall finances. It also provides an opportunity to contemplate the actions that may be necessary to sustain the business should the worst-case scenario materialize.

Your data should also help quantify the points at which you should "cut your losses" in underperforming segments or routes. Failing to define this could extend cash-bleed, and losses may persist longer than anticipated - a phenomenon especially prevalent if the performance of other divisions, or the company overall, is robust.

Contracted Services:

For contracted services, it's an opportune time to reflect on the accuracy of our cost assumptions. Have any unexpected costs surfaced? If so, how can they be mitigated, especially if revenue is fixed?

Are there opportunities available next year to recover any of these unplanned costs? Establishing a documentation process will help ensure that these elements are not overlooked in upcoming opportunities or renewals.

Review the competitive environment. Have there been changes that may enable you to be more conservative in pricing new business opportunities — or necessitate being more aggressive?

Charter/For Hire:

If you enjoyed a successful charter year and anticipate no change in 2024, should you invest in upgrades to sales tech to attract more customers, or would it be more prudent to use the funds to add another vehicle to the fleet? What is the differential value delivered by one option over the other?

Examine fleet allocation. If there's an opportunity to use an asset to generate $4.50 per mile on 365 days of the year (a fictitious Monday to Sunday scheduled service line), or $8 per mile over 150 days (a fictitious 3-day-per-week charter utilization), do you want to reallocate fleet from charter to scheduled, or vice versa? A simple table with calculations may help inform this decision:

2 - Driver Planning:

Prioritize strategic driver planning now to establish a solid foundation before embarking on the next hiring event or advertising campaign.

Estimating Requirements

With insights from the service planning section above, you can estimate our expected weekly driver requirements. While exact schedules may not be defined, approximations can be derived from the expected miles and vehicle requirements.

To arrive at a reliable estimate for driver requirements, utilize a general ratio, such as the current weekly miles to the current weekly number of required drivers. Apply this ratio to your 2024 estimated miles, week by week, to attain a ballpark figure of requirements throughout the year.

Vacation Rostering:

There is a recurrent issue in our industry - too many drivers on vacation during peak periods.

To mitigate this, planning should commence now. Develop a year-long roster for vacation slots, allocating these based on seniority well before January 1.

For instance, if 40 drivers are required from January to March, and 60 from April to December, and each driver is entitled to 20 vacation days a year, this translates to approximately 220 vacation weeks to be rostered throughout the year.

The number of available slots per week should be adapted to the business’s peaks and troughs. If you anticipate a surplus of drivers at certain times of the year, increase the allowable weeks off during those times and decrease them during peak seasons. In the 40-60 drivers example above, aim to align the total weeks allowed in the year with the 220 target.

Early driver planning is pivotal. Without it, operators run the risk of encountering coverage issues, potentially leading to disrupted services, exasperated dispatch staff, and compromised customer service delivery.

Closing Remarks:

Time is of the essence, and it's easy to become 'stuck in the weeds' with planning and find ourselves running out of time to address the aspects of planning that yield the most significant impact.

The primary focus should be placed on service and driver planning, as they not only drive the largest revenue but also account for some of your most substantial costs. Moreover, when these elements are not executed properly, the customer feels the impact acutely.

Avoid burning out by trying to perfect every detail, only to find that there’s insufficient time to give service and driver planning the thoughtful consideration they require. Utilize the aspects highlighted in this guide as a resource in your strategic planning. Good luck!

As a transit insider, I can think of many reasons to shy away from the idea: the need for more staff, introducing overnight working shifts, and the dreaded 2 a.m. phone call when something bad happens. However more companies and agencies embracing the idea, whether on weekends only, continuously or a blend of both. For example:

McGills, Glasgow, UK (McGill's Bus Group):

• Recently commenced weekend night services to cater to late-night travelers.

• Provides very marketable hourly services at :xx past the hour, ensuring reliability for passengers.

BART System, San Francisco (BART):

• Recently transitioned from a traditional commuter-centric model.

• Now caters to a broader demographic, from late-night workers to early morning airport travelers.

Dublin Bus, Ireland (Dublin Bus (Bus Átha Cliath)):

• A pioneer in nighttime transit with their decades long weekend "Nitelink" services.

• Recently, they've further expanded by converting 10 routes into true 24/7 operations.

This article delves into the case for night bus services and what operators should consider in evaluating the value that nighttime services can bring to their business and hopefully somewhat debunking the myth that it's an overly daunting endeavor.

The Case For Night Services

Addressing Modern Work Practices

• The pandemic has reshaped work routines, with flexible, hybrid and remote work schedules changing the weekly flows in addition to the time-of-day peaks.

• Night services can serve an underserved market for workers where traditional commuter schedules are insufficient.

Serving Night Workers

• Night buses cater to this workforce demographic, ensuring that people have dependable transport options for both commutes, reducing the reliance on personal vehicles.

• These include other transportation facility workers, hospital staff and the myriad of businesses that have some form of overnight operations.

Strengthens Modal Connections

• Airports and rail stations, critical nodes in the transport network, often operate round the clock. There are scores of examples where transit connections to airports do little to serve customers that leave on the first flights of the day.

• The lack of late night departures from airports in the event of a late returning flight may be the breaking point between deciding to take the car and park versus leaving the car at home.

Boosts the Economy

• With accessible transport, people are more likely to participate in nighttime activities without concerns of parking or driving. Isn't it often that the 'event rate' parking tariff seems to be in effect whenever you decide to drive?

• The presence of night services offers affordability and accessibility options to those that might otherwise find mobility difficult from a disability or financial viewpoint.

The list continues - fewer cars on the road, fewer accidents, less emissions, increased foot traffic for establishments etc.

Operator Considerations

Before jumping into the P+L's, there are a couple of other aspects worth evaluating. Let's examine the impact of some of the requirements:

Fleet

Most of the bus fleet is idle/parked during nighttime hours. Rather than viewing these buses as dormant assets, they can be converted into revenue-generating vehicles optimized for 24/7 use. While maintenance, fueling, and washing operations often occur during the night, it's rare for the entire fleet to be serviced simultaneously.

Staffing

Commuter centric transit operations are often split-shift heavy in terms of driver workdays. Though cost-efficient, they're generally unpopular due to their long daily spread with large chunks of unpaid time in the middle.

Night services present an opportunity to restructure these shifts into fuller, more consistent driver shifts. This not only enhances driver satisfaction but might also play a pivotal role in reducing costly turnover rates.

The run cut below is a simplified demonstration of this:

Overnight Maintenance

Continuous operations allow overnight maintenance crews to work in more active settings, which can enhance safety, especially when compared to situations where they might otherwise work alone.

Revenue and Cash Generation

While it's essential to fully absorb costs for the long-term sustainability of the business, overnight services can provide a notable contribution to fixed overheads. In this illustrative example, I examine the marginal cash benefit of overnight services compared to the status quo for a hypothetical operation:

In this scenario, night services contribute an additional $1,050 per day. This can be allocated to fixed expenses such as rent, insurance, interest, depreciation, and facilities overhead. I recommend modeling a similar analysis on a spreadsheet. By adjusting various assumptions, you can assess their individual impacts—whether it's a change in revenue per mile or varying operational costs.

In Conclusion

While the analysis here is fairly simplified, it covers the primary considerations. Can it make financial sense? What other issues does it create? Can it help solve existing operational challenges?

There's also the social and environmental impact. Transit systems can not only enhance their revenue streams but also play a pivotal role in creating more accessible, eco-friendly, and vibrant cities - taking cars out of the equation and making destinations much more pleasant and safer to explore on foot.

The question isn't just about whether we should adopt night bus services, but how best to implement and optimize them. It doesn't have to be all-or-nothing. Try it with one or two of your best daytime routes serving a busy city destination on weekends only - or an airport service 7 days a week in the busy season and see how it goes from there.

Embracing night bus services offers a promising avenue for operators to adapt to modern demands, drive revenue, and truly serve the diverse needs of today's cities.

We need to be able to quantify the impact of traffic congestion on our busing operations. While as operators we can influence some aspects of modal shift - like ticket pricing, regular schedules, and good clean equipment - the biggest needle-movers are those that push people from their cars to the bus or other mass transit. These include measures that result in a mindset where it doesn’t make sense to even consider the car as a first option – like driving in Manhattan or Central London.

Making ride times quicker and more convenient than equivalent car journeys can be achieved via a variety of measures. Unfortunately, they are not typically within the control of operators.

The establishment of bus priorities (e.g. bus-only corridors, queue jumps and traffic signal technologies), improved enforcement of traffic rules (policing of bus priorities, ticketing parking offenders) and replacing spaces used to support car infrastructure for bus infrastructure (For example, creating bus lanes out of long car parking lanes) are all measures that require the assistance of local authorities and urban planning folk.

Every Operator Needs to Know the Cost of Congestion

One important task bus operators should undertake is an assessment of the cost of congestion in their system and on their operations. And I’m not talking about the ‘delay’ or ‘overtime’ dollars added to payroll for drivers booking off late.

Every General Manager should know the monetary cost of congestion on their operations and specifically what the elimination of that can translate into for them, their local authorities, and their communities.

Every Regional Manager should know this for their region and every CEO/Executive should know this for their entire company. The numbers can be staggering.

Quantifying the Congestion

In this article, we’ll explore some ways of quantifying the congestion. We’ll look at the costs of congestion extrapolated into annual amounts, and we’ll look at how solutioning it in the form of bus priorities can help local authorities win in servicing their jurisdictions.

Armed with these bits of data, bus operators can be better equipped to engagement with local stakeholders, authorities and the travelling public and help move the case for action on bus priority in their areas.

Assumptions:

I’ll take a fictitious example, but I'd encourage you to build out an equivalent model to get some high-level numbers for congestion in your own system.

Here are some assumptions:

• I have 1 busy cross-city route. It operates every 10 minutes from 6am to 8pm.

• It takes 55 minutes one-way, and I have 10 minutes layover at each end.

• A decent set of bus priorities would reduce journey time by 10 minutes to 45mins.

Let’s look at what that can save on our operations:

A 10 minute improvement in journey time in this example saves:

• 2 buses, or 2 PVR

• Take an annual maintenance cost per PVR and remove the 2 buses saved and you’re likely into 5 digits of savings.

• 28 operational hours (or approx. 3 driver shifts) per day.

• Bump that up to 5 or 6 days a week, and you’re hitting 140-160 hours a week (or 4-5 driver bid/rota lines).

• How about that times 52 weeks for the year and you’re over 7,000 hours. If you’re at $15 an hour, then you’re well into six digit savings annually - for only one route!

The amounts are astonishing when worked out. The benefit of faster journey times and more efficient use of road space should help make car use even less attractive, which should help reduce further the congestion that exists outside the bus priorities as car users reconsider.

Beyond Savings

It’s not only the operational savings that need to be considered as the goal. There are other uses for the saved resource, and these should form the basis of why there are other benefits to local authorities and city planners for the communities they serve, in addition to the bus operators:

Increase Frequency:

• If the route is already strong, more frequent service and less waiting for passengers may encourage further organic growth. In this case, buses could operate up to every 7-8 minutes approximately. The better a bus priority system is, the more unattractive the car becomes. This has positive safety and health implications for the built environment.

Service Expansion:

• The 10 minutes saved could instead be used to extend the reach of the route by 10 minutes beyond its current start or end point. Is there a nearby untapped housing development, village, hospital, store that could be the source of organic growth? The case for priorities to make transit accessible to more can be a compelling one to make and politically positive for those decision makers.

Cost Reduction and Fare Revision:

• There are significant savings on hours and vehicles that could be passed on in the form of revised fares or new ticket products. As mentioned earlier, this can be one of the few tools within the bus operator’s control as a ‘pull-factor’ to help with the modal shift away from the car. It can show the operator's commitment as a partner with the local authority in the project towards jointly executed planning for sustainable travel.

Sandbox or New Route Experimentation:

• An operator in good financial shape may take the hours and buses saved and deploy them on experimental routes, shuttles, etc. You may consider this as the research and development dollars reallocated from savings rather new expenditure. It may help identify other opportunities for new and organic growth.

Wrapping Up:

The example provided was for 1 route with a 10 minute frequency, which yielded savings in the hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.

Most large transit systems contain may routes of similar characteristics and could benefit from any initiatives that could shorten journey times by 10 minutes.

They need to know internally what the value of that is on the tip of their tongue and continuously remind themselves of it.

They need to use every opportunity to promote the benefits to the authorities, push internally to secure lobbying resource, and to demonstrate in community engagement exercises how, with some willpower and effort, we can all help improve the towns and cities we live in.

When we hear of audits in our industry, we usually think of safety, financial or external audits being conducted on behalf of, say, a government agency.

Internal Operations Audits in busing tend to be less prevalent, often limited to larger publicly listed companies, transit agencies or companies with strong governance boards.

However, contracts have been revoked and companies have folded due to enforcement actions resulting from a wide range of operations-related shortcomings, as opposed to safety or financial issues.

Examples include poor customer experience that goes uncorrected over time, persistent unreliability, missed trips or reporting deficiencies.

Some of the broad audit areas in busing include Maintenance, Finance, Safety and Operations.

What are Operations Audits?

Operations Audits cover the aspect of ‘what should be done’ at the operations level, effectively checking a process that should be documented.

The Operational Audit is about two things:

• Providing the best possible service to the passenger, whether you carry them on a contracted service or not.

• De-risking the business from the impact of human nature.

The quality of operational processes can slip through the cracks as other priorities and processes evolve, particularly in scaling businesses. Regular checks are needed to ensure that what we think is happening in our organization is actually happening — and happening well. Give it a score. See if it’s getting better or worse over time. Take action to improve.

The audit list can be limitless, but in this piece, we'll focus on some of the major ones that you should have as a minimum. They account for the highest risks to your business from an operations standpoint and should form a non-negotiable part of your business risk planning and review.

Where to start?

Technically, every process can be audited. Begin by asking about the consequences of not regularly auditing a process. Some processes are more critical than others.

For instance, failing to record and act on lost mileage/trips can have a much bigger implication than, say, accurate complaint logging.

Assign a grade to the important items based on Risk (likelihood) x Impact (severity of consequences). Create a table, similar to that below detailing what you will audit, how severe a risk the processes may be, how you might measure and where you might go to look for the data.

Let’s look at the three categories above in more detail:

Lost Mileage / Lost Trips

Dropping mileage and/or trips puts organic growth in jeopardy and puts contracted services at risk. An audit can include:

Random Road Checks

• An auditor can do roadside observations and compare observed service deviations against the records kept back at the garage. Do they match. Why/Why not?

Complaint Sampling

• An auditor can examine a sample of complaints and compare to garage operations logs/records.

• Do they check out? Are the number of complaints about no-shows disproportionately high and the garage records for missed trips oddly low?

Bus Tracking Reports

• Are there gaps in bus tracking data? What accounts for the gaps?

Run Out Sheets

• Did each bus working have a vehicle dispatched to it. Are any vehicles listed twice or more? Check against tracking systems.

Reliability

Late, bunched buses, or big service gaps erode customer confidence in the product. There are a multitude of metrics that can be tested. For this piece, I’ve kept it simple with just on-time performance. An audit here can include:

Random Road Checks

• Roadside observations again, with cross referencing against garage records can give a sense of garage engagement with conditions and recording of same.

Complaint Sampling

• Is there evidence of complaint investigation where reliability is concerned? Are any actions taken beyond complaint response?

Bus Tracking Reports

• Are these being reviewed for run times, dwells and on time performance regularly?

Complaints

Complaint handling can feel like a burden on operations staff, but they provide an opportunity to direct focus. Although I rated the complaints handling process a little less severe as the others in terms of risk to the broader business, there are some important processes to be considered to ensure we’re giving ourselves an opportunity to be better. An audit may look at:

Complaints Log

• Is there evidence that complaints are being logged and processed cradle to grave?

• Are they being properly investigated and is there evidence of action taken where the complaint has merit?

• Is response time being recorded and used as a potential improvement metric?

Email/Phone/Chat Systems

• Are all contact channels being captured?

It can get very granular and overwhelming quite quick, so it's important to not put off implementation, but rather, start small and build on it. Over time, you'll appreciate what needs to be kept and what can be depreciated.

In summary

As much as infrastructural changes are needed to curb car use and facilitate modal shift, bus operators need to continuously up their game.

A conscientious executive may have all the trust in the world in their staff's capability and may not want to 'rock the boat' by introducing additional audits.

However, failing to regularly monitor high-risk operational items, crucial for business growth and continuity, could ultimately be a disservice to both customers and your employees.

Even today, I see many bus and coach operators who depend heavily on a few individuals with vast institutional knowledge, and whose loss would be difficult for the company to replace. Often the individuals are nearing retirement, and little effort is expended bringing people on to step up. In other cases, knowledge sits with a couple of key individuals who want to move out of the company or industry.

We often recognize and intend to address this, but busyness and firefighting means that time flies by and suddenly we hit a crisis point and a skills and leadership gap. We then either try to dig through it, sometimes by having unprepared staff step up, resulting in stress, burnout and eventual loss of the colleague, or we are forced to hire from outside, which can be costly.

In this article I want to take a look at hiring graduates and fast-tracking them into your organization as part of your efforts to strengthen your teams and be prepared for the future.

Introducing the Graduate Recruitment Program

A graduate program hires recent college graduates and exposes them to all aspects of the company over the course of a year. Typically, they’ll go into a management position afterwards and soon find their niche, which may be anywhere from service planning, to being president/managing director of a division and beyond.

But you need something attractive to hire graduates onto, and to sell to your local and regional colleges and universities so that they'll include you in their preferred recruiter lists for students. That’s where a good Graduate Recruitment Program comes into play.

Where do I start?

Ground Rules

There are some ground rules regarding the establishment of a program. It's not the responsibility of your Human Resources department to establish and maintain, it's a deliberate effort from the highest management in the organization to prioritize and commit to talent development and succession planning. Here are some ground rules prior to looking at a framework:

• The candidate is committed to the program for the year. They don’t have a ‘day-job’ as such. Their time is spent rotating through all aspects of the business, both at the garage and out in the field, corporate offices, call centers etc.

• Bus driving in revenue service is mandatory unless it's not possible for reasons of disability etc. The graduate should repeat their driving test until they make it. It gears the graduate up so well for driver interactions and customer empathy in all aspects of management later.

• The program and graduates progress must be followed and reviewed by a senior person regularly. In a family run business, this might be one of the owners. In agency or larger corporations, the CEO, COO or a direct report should own the candidates progress, with quarterly reviews. A local manager should be the graduates day-to-day mentor.

• There should be a junior management position for the candidate to move into in about 12 months. This requires advance planning and foresight.

As you start, the program will be an evolving document over time. You'll add, remove and tweak items as you see relevant. But it is important that no aspects of operating the bus company are left out. You need to provide the 'full picture' in this fast-track year.

Example Program Outline

A good starting point is breaking your program down into 1 monthly rotations, with a few months spent on the driving aspect.

Here is a basic outline:

Here's a deeper dive into what a graduate might do in each of these modules. Borrow, amend, add, remove as you see fit:

Months 1-3 - Training, Drivers License, Revenue Service

To include all aspects of new driver recruitment. Sit through the classroom modules, computer based learning modules, learning to drive, driving in service, all shifts.

Month 4 – Operations Dispatch

To include all aspects of dispatch – forward allocation, sign-on, sign-off, all shifts, variation handling, logs etc.

Month 5 – Supervisory and Management

Discipline, hiring, operations management, reporting etc.

Month 6 – Operations – Administration

Insurance filing, subrogation, employment applications, cash counting, audit preparation, complaint management, payroll processing etc.

Month 7 – Maintenance – Floor

Shadowing and working with teams in various aspects of maintenance – preventative, inspection, defect, campaign, bodywork, cleaning and fueling crews – all shifts.

Month 8 – Maintenance – Supervisory and Management

Shadowing maintenance supervisors – quality audits, staff management, fleet availability planning.

Month 9 – Maintenance – Administrative

Working with the inventory personnel, fleet management system, document processing, payroll processing.

Month 10 – Commercial Development

New route development, new business opportunities (requests for proposals, invitations to tender etc), contract renewals, local authority meetings.

Month 11 – Commercial Analysis

Report generation, route profitability analysis, fleet utilization, schedule creation, bus blocking, run cutting, rostering, efficiency metrics.

Month 12 – Head Office

Strategy insights, Profit and Loss, Cashflows, wider stakeholder engagement activities – with corporate, with local authorities, with senior union personnel, with policy makers.

Tracking Progress

Within each module, progress trackers should be developed and maintained. The document should be kept for review and form the talking points with the mentor and at senior reviews.

Something like the following can be used as a template:

Supplementary Training

There will be a number of supplementary training courses that may be required to fulfill local legal obligations, or you may wish to introduce to the program to advance the skillset of the candidate and mitigate risks to the business. In my experience this included:

Program Review Structure

Finally, the program should be endorsed and have participation from the top ranks of the business. Periodic reviews should be done at the highest levels, with more frequent reviews locally. The candidate should be meeting their local mentor – a trusted person to onboard – at least weekly. A review structure may look something like this:

End of Month 12

At the end of the year, the value of the investment in the graduate will be apparent. They will be ready to take on their first substantive position, and as they continue to develop and grow, may find themselves settling into a niche within the business, or becoming a future head of your organization.

Their well-rounded experience will set them up to be a strong asset to your operation regardless of how far they go and your investment of time and resource into them will elevate the professionalism of your company, reinforce it's continuity resilience, and contribute to our industries reputation.

Good luck!

A Personal Note - My Experience

I’m a product of the (what is now the) Stagecoach Group Limited Graduate Development Scheme which was structured very similar to what was outlined above. I was in awe of what I saw people not much older than me being able to do - manage people, deal with crisis, run a well-oiled business. I thought I was out of my depth!

However, the training and support resulted in my path taking me from graduate trainee to managing facilities of over 200 vehicles and 600 drivers 2 years from starting the program.

I then led the group’s successful application to provide transportation and facilities management for the London 2012 Olympics.

Megabus, an intercity bus service with retail, capacity, and revenue management akin to what airlines were doing at the time, was just getting started in the USA and Canada and I was asked to help with those efforts. That soon after became one of the biggest successful transportation stories in the US and Canada.

This note is not to list my accomplishments, but to emphasize that I did not see any of these opportunities coming when I started fresh out of university.

For the sake of a years upfront investment in my development, the group has had an immense financial return and I remained part of the groups success for many years. My story isn't unique. There are many others that have similar stories having come from similar programs in our industry. It's a program worth serious consideration if you don't have one already.

In a parts of the country where much intercity bus travel passenger traffic skews (very) long distances, disruption can amount passengers becoming stranded mid-route, to buses getting stuck-in-place for hours, or sometimes days on end. Transit, charter, and contract operations do not escape disruption either.

In this piece, I'm going to look at long, short and immediate term planning for busing using weather products from the National Weather Service (NWS) in the United States. I'll also offer planning advice for charter, intercity and transit type operations for each time horizon.

You'll need some local research on similar weather products if you're reading from outside the USA, but the planning actions are still very relevant.

At the very end, a reference card is provided to assist by bus operation type.

Let's start with the long range plan:

Longer Term (8-14 Days)

In the long term, you will typically not see advisories, warnings or outlooks as the certainty and impact of weather is unknown. The NWS provides the "8-14 Day U.S. Hazards Outlook", a product to help forecast Hazardous Weather in this period. The links to the outlooks are available at:

8-14 Day U.S. Hazards Outlook

On this page, you will select your hazard type (snow, wind, temperature etc.) and will then be taken to the screen (below) showing where that type of hazard is expected:

To this example, a slight risk of heavy snow exists for much of New England, The Great Lakes and the Sierra Nevada in the 8–14-day range. Your actions based on this information will vary depending on your operations type:

Charter

At this stage you're looking at the need to:

• Advise customer on potential impacted travel dates - is there scope to move or juggle the itinerary?

• Do an early risk assessment for weather-related disruptions - If it happens, what is the plan? The customer may not be willing to change the plan at this point, but the operator should consider the 'what ifs'.

Intercity

For intercity bus, you will want to review actions from similar events in similar geographies if you have that history to hand. You will also want to:

• Review connecting and/or feeder services, so you know who up and downstream will be affected.

• Prepare for alternate routing, if applicable.

Transit

Transit will require planning and knowledge of the response of local authorities to help formulate your response as the bus operator:

• Early engagement with local authorities.

• An understanding of their readiness for snow/ice. Is there anything different affecting their readiness this year vs prior events?

Shorter Term (3-7 Days)

As we get closer to forecast events the Day 3-7 US Hazards Outlook map is your friend:

Day 3-7 US Hazards Outlook

This particular map is quite congested, reflecting the range of expected weather issues across the US in early January 2024. Nevertheless it provides additional information which helps with planning.

Actions to be taken:

Charter

At this point, your customer should be aware of the upcoming conditions.

• Engage customers to ensure they are aware of conditions, if they've not already reached out.

• Confirm or reschedule travel dates to stay clear of the weather.

• Consider taking no new bookings for impacted dates.

Intercity

At this stage you need to be aware of feeds and connections to/from your service(s). A route from LA to NYC may have passengers that will start their trip a day or two before they travel on your impacted segment. Other items to check:

• Finalize routing decisions.

• Communicate potential delays or cancellations to passengers.

• Consider adjusting stops and/or layovers.

• Planning for stranded passengers

Transit

At this point, depending on impact, you may consider switching to an off-peak schedule. Harsh weather in the forecast tends to reduce demand as passengers opt to not travel. Include in your planning:

• Planning for staffing to cover expected delays, additional maintenance coverage, garage snow removal etc.

• Advance communications to customers on schedule changes.

Immediate Term - Next 72 Hours

A variety of weather forecasting products will be important as the expected day of disruption approaches. The 'hourly forecast' can help determine the onset and end time of severe weather. These should be complemented with any advisory, watch or warnings that are issued.

Local forecast offices may also issue additional products such as 'briefings' or a 'weather story' - which is typically a presentation summarizing the expected conditions, timing, severity and expected impacts.

Your starting point for all these is the National Weather Service homepage at:

www.weather.gov

Form here, you will search for the location of interest, for example, New York City:

You will then see the screen with the forecast for that local area, along with any advisory/watch/warning products (circled) and the link to the hourly forecast beneath (arrow):

The hourly weather forecast can help with predicting the onset of hazardous weather. This could be a guide as to when you will want to work backwards from to ensure you're winding down services and securing assets.

In addition to the hourly forecast, you should review any outlooks, watches and warnings issued. These will give a localized assessment as to the impacts of weather events.

The local impact of a 3-inch snow event in Atlanta, GA will have a much different (i.e. greater) impact than the same event in Buffalo, NY. The warnings and advisories will account for these local differences in impact.

I will provide two examples of warnings here - note the difference in language in each:

This Wisconsin warning suggests difficult travel. In busing, it's a judgement call to run service or not, based on local experience, risk assessment and answering the question "will anyone really be out travelling in this weather?"

A stronger worded Blizzard Warning like this may encourage you to take more decisive action:

This Washington state warning suggests very difficult to impossible travel. Travel should be restricted to emergencies only etc. etc. At this level, preparation to wind down operations should be underway. No question.

By business type, consider the following:

Charter

• Be prepared for day-of changes if the charter is not cancelled.

• Consider postponement dates and communicate these to customers.

Intercity

If you are operating intercity service and the weather forecast changes or intensifies after you had buses commence longer journeys, you'll need to:

• Manage delays/detours/curtailments on the fly.

• Constant communication up and down stream to customers and connecting partners.

• Have additional assistance on hand to deal with customer queries and potential stranded customers.

Transit

Much like inter-city, you will need to:

• Manage delays and detours on the fly.

• Provide constant communication - email, social, website, local media, and transit feeds (for google transit etc.).

Stay safe, and be sensible:

I have worked in locations where, for the most genuine of reasons, dispatchers and operations staff try to 'put out as much service as possible', and keep lost miles to a minimum, and of course, many performance metrics and KPIs comprise of minimizing lost miles.

However, as weather forecasting has become more accessible, customers have become more accustomed to learning of the weather in advance and its potential impacts. They've become less inclined to brave the elements and just stay in place:

• With bookings on intercity travel, we see advance booking activity collapse when news of an upcoming weather event starts to become headlines in a city.

• On transit, snow days are going to be one of the stay-at-home days for hybrid workers.

• On charter, groups are likely to call and postpone, particularly if the origin if affected by weather or the destination involves activity where weather would negatively impact that.

For bus companies, securing assets, property and giving your staff the opportunity to prepare will alleviate internal anxiety and reduce exposure. We do not need to be heroes by running empty buses through bad storms and blizzards.

Use these tools and guidance to govern what you should operate, when to make adjustments and above all, keep safety front-of-mind.

Be safe and good luck!

Your Winter Weather Reference Card: