Carl is right. In terms of Service 172, Aberdare to Porthcawl is more than 50km in length. Therefore, drivers would be expected to adhere to EU Driving Hours Regulations. These stipulate that a maximum of four and a half hours can be spent behind the wheel and a 45 minute break is then required. Under Domestic Driving Hours Regulations, the driving time can be extended to five and a half hours and the break reduced to 30 minutes. By splitting the route into two separate services - 172, Aberdare to Bridgend and 72, Bridgend to Porthcawl - both of which are less than 50km in length, the Domestic Driving Hours Regulations can be retained.
This gives the flexibility that all of Aberdare depot's drivers, regardless of which rota they may be allocated, work to the same Driving Hours Regulations and adhere to the same fortnightly rest periods. Importantly for the 172/72, a round trip between Aberdare and Porthcawl is just over four and a half hours. If the EU Driving Hours Regulations had to be adopted, every driver (and bus) would have to have a minimum of a 45 minute break at Porthcawl, instead of the current 20 minutes. This would lead to a sixth bus having to be allocated to the service, instead of the current five. Stagecoach has recently also split the X3 (Cardiff-Cwmbran-Pontypool- Abergavenny) into the X3 (Cardiff-Pontypool) and X33 (Pontypool- Abergavenny), and the X14 (Cwmbran-Newport-Chepstow-Bristol) into the 14 (Cwmbran-Chepstow) and X14 (Chepstow-Bristol) (mirroring First Somerset & Avon) for the same reason as the split of the 172. The only Stagecoach driving staff that I understand have to adhere to EU Driving Hours Regulations are those based at Brynmawr on the X4 rota, those based at Brecon who cover Services 39 and T4, and the megabus.com drivers based at Cwmbran. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Welsh Bus Photographs" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/welsh-bus-photographs?hl=en.
