First cancels hundreds of daily Bristol bus journeys

Hundreds of bus journeys across Bristol and the surrounding area every day, have been cancelled.

First West of England have announced the news this afternoon (November 16), blaming a shortage of drivers.

In a statement the operator says impacted services will show as cancelled on the First Bus app and on the real time information screens at bus stops.

"We are doing our utmost to address the driver shortage but doing so will inevitably take some time.," a spokesperson says.

"As a result, we expect these cancellations to remain in place until at least the next major change to timetables on Sunday 2nd April, which is a date agreed between all operators and the West of England Combined Authority (WECA).

"We regret having to do this as we appreciate it will cause some disruption, but by giving customers advance notice of cancellations rather than having to learn of them on the day, we want to make it easier for travel plans to be adjusted.

"Cancelling these journeys in advance also enables our operations teams to focus on delivering a more reliable service for our customers, rather than dealing with cancelling journeys on the day."

Though this has happened in the recent past, First are not scrapping entire services.

Instead, they are cancelling specific journeys on existing services throughout the day, every day.

For example, the number 1 service leaving Broomhill will no longer run at 11 different times every day from Monday to Friday, including at 7:40am, 9:31am and 5:42pm.

A full list of the cancellations can be found on First's website here, but reports suggest the total weekly number is almost 1,450.

It surely means a large number of people in Bristol and nearby who rely on bus services to get to work or to socialise, will no longer be able to do so.

Metro Mayor Dan Norris, who leads WECA, recently suggested students train as bus drivers to help alleviate the problem.

First declined our request for an interview.

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