Buses that fail, travelers who have to wait longer and longer to see if a bus is running at all. The staff shortage among bus drivers is starting to trickle down. This also applies to the municipality of Reusel-De Mierden, where residents have started a petition to keep Line 143 from Reusel to Tilburg alive. The municipality wants to try to improve that scheduled service with 75,000 euros.
“Arriva has cut its timetable again after the summer holidays in 2023. Now this is understandable given the situation in this country. But the few buses that are still running are also continually failing. As a result, people have to wait a very long time and overcrowded buses. Enough is enough,” writes the initiator of the petition.
Niels Huijbregts can confirm that. He is a municipal councilor and faction leader of the party ‘Collaboration Reusel-De Mierden’. He has been advocating for an extension of line 143 from Reusel to Tilburg for a number of years.
“If you want to go to visiting hours at the hospital in Tilburg in the evening, you will no longer get home by bus.”
There is no bus to Tilburg from Reusel on Sundays. On Saturdays we drive until about seven o’clock in the evening and during the week the fun is over after seven o’clock in the evening. “If you want to go to visiting hours at the hospital in Tilburg in the evening, you can’t sit through it all the way through. Because then you won’t come home,” Huijbregts gives as an example.
Now with the staff shortages, even less is being driven. The summer schedule is still in effect, which means fewer buses. All this is due to the staff shortage and is happening in many more places in Brabant.
Reusel-De Mierden wants to release 75,000 euros for a trial. With that money she wants to run an extra trip to Tilburg on weekday evenings and two extra trips on Sundays. These journeys would be made with a smaller bus that travels to Hilvarenbeek. “There, travelers can transfer to the bus to Tilburg.”
“Many people are directly affected by staff shortages in public transport.”
After discussions with Arriva and the province, the plan seemed to be successful, but as it stands now, the province must first give approval. “Whether that will work, I honestly don’t dare to say. So many bus lines have already been scaled down in the past, we don’t know.”
If the test does go ahead, Huijbregts hopes that it will become clear based on the passenger numbers that expansion of line 143 is necessary.
Carrier Arriva says against NOS about the staff shortages that she will not structurally cut lines anywhere in the country. But nowadays journeys are canceled ‘here and there’. “We always try to make arrangements if a shift cannot be completed due to illness, for example.”
Arriva recognizes that travelers notice this. “If a factory cannot bake cookies for a day due to a staff shortage, that is annoying. But when there are staff shortages in public transport, many people are directly affected,” a spokesperson explains.