Bus Fleet Utilisation

Victor

Passing Donnybrook the other day at 1645, there was more than 20 buses of various designs parked up. Are these the ones on the disposal list or what?

I realise that there will be a small number of vehicles that have been damaged are going through routine maintenance, etc., but not that many.

SickCert

1645........ You have various drivers all on their breaks (145/84x/17/18/114). Rejoining the mayhem later with one of these parked beasts.
You normally have 10+ old timers on standby and dont forget as a bus is fixed its brought back out and parked up.

Victor

But surely if a driver is on a break, his bus should be in use by someone else. Correction - it isn't his bus.

Can you imagine a shop closing a till at peak trading time, because someone is on break? The float is changed and someone else takes that till.

SickCert

There are buses coming and going all the time.

I remember back to the late 90's when there was a shortage and you would come back and just sit at the hatch and cancel part of the shift. Things are a little different now. At 1725 alone three of us reports for machines and they must be there for the (84x/145).

AlekSmart

Any snapshot of a Bus Garage can be deceptive for a number of reasons.

Its also worth noting that Donnybrook is now handling chassis wash requirements for some other depot`s due to having newly installed equipment.
This could see anything up to 5 vehicles on site.

It`s often the case that the engineers holdings for the day over run on their work time which sees the vehicles come off the pits and park in the yard rather than entering service directly.

Bus Atha Cliaths Vehicle Utilization figures are almost top of the scale in europe and compare favourably with the "Big Boys" in the UK.
There is virtually no slack in bus numbers and this can place some pressure on Maintenance Dept`s especially if there is a surge in unplanned maintenance.

There are some cases where a driver will retain the same Bus over the entire duty and this is not necessarily indicative of any inefficiency as duty overlaps usually ensure that the Peak Vehicle Requirement (PVR) is maintained.