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The district of Dachau is running out of bus drivers

2022-10-18T15:07:22.579Z


The district of Dachau is running out of bus drivers Created: 10/18/2022, 4:55 p.m By: Stefanie Zipfer The school buses are the last lines to be cancelled. © THOMAS PLETTENBERG/ARCHIVE The district of Dachau is running out of bus drivers. In the short term, the lack of drivers even jeopardizes school bus services. Dachau – Detlev Metzner did not have good news with him when he was supposed to


The district of Dachau is running out of bus drivers

Created: 10/18/2022, 4:55 p.m

By: Stefanie Zipfer

The school buses are the last lines to be cancelled.

© THOMAS PLETTENBERG/ARCHIVE

The district of Dachau is running out of bus drivers.

In the short term, the lack of drivers even jeopardizes school bus services.

Dachau – Detlev Metzner did not have good news with him when he was supposed to speak about the “current developments and challenges in the MVV” in his function as division manager for regional bus transport in the environment and transport committee of the district council.

Traffic turnaround in the district of Dachau a Herculean task

Because the word "challenge" doesn't quite fit it.

Those responsible face a Herculean task in view of the politically desired “transport turnaround” that has also been promised to the citizens.

If you want to expand local public transport and thus lure more people away from their cars and into buses or trains, you need two things: money and bus drivers.

Both are scarce - not only in the district of Dachau.

According to Metzner, the situation for bus drivers has now become so difficult that there can no longer be any question of expanding the offer: the current situation alone is hardly tenable.

Lines 772 and 776 recently had to cut their clock in half due to staffing problems.

If other drivers fail, for example due to illness or because they quit, you will have to “relocate”.

This means that the school bus service, which the district is obliged to ensure, would be secured by reducing the supply of regional bus services elsewhere.

But what is the reason for the driver shortage?

According to Metzner, there are several reasons: The existing staff is simply getting old and retiring.

Due to the moderate pay and high demands, there are hardly any young local bus drivers.

According to MVV man Metzner, only south-eastern Europeans are currently being recruited - and understandably would go where they are best paid or where they can work most easily.

And this is not in the district of Dachau.

A bus driver's license, Metzner reported to the astonished district councillors, costs well over 13,000 euros in Germany and "less than half" in Austria.

Metzner couldn't say why the driver's license is so much cheaper in the Alpine republic than in Germany.

What he knew for sure: The cost of living in and around Munich is also enormous, and there is also a sometimes “unattractive job”.

There is not even a quiet place

In other words: there is not even a quiet place for the bus drivers in the district.

“If need be, the men can just go behind a bush.

But that's not possible for women," said District Administrator Stefan Löwl.

In addition to better payment for bus drivers, there is an urgent need to expand the bus depots in order to attract foreign drivers to the Dachau district.

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What does the 49-euro ticket bring to Dachau?

However, like so many things in Germany, paying is not that easy.

There are two collective agreements: the so-called TV-N collective agreement for public bus companies such as Stadtwerke Dachau.

And the LBO collective agreement for all other bus companies.

The LBO is the generally binding standard tariff set by the Bavarian State Ministry for Family, Labor and Social Affairs, which must be taken into account in tenders and explicitly promotes a price war.

The regional buses in the district of Dachau all go to the LBO.

Matthias Fay, who is responsible for the city bus service and its 74 bus drivers at the Dachauer Stadtwerke, does not know the problem of the lack of bus drivers.

“It hurts me myself,” he admits.

But if the municipal utility were to advertise a driver's position, he would immediately receive applications – most of them from drivers with LBO pay.

According to Fay, the advantage of the public utility company, which, like the regional buses, is also subordinate to the MVV, but can drive in its own design and pay according to TV-N, is obvious: “We have new buses, regular working hours, less stress and higher wages .” According to Fay, the hourly wage in TV-N is 16.17 euros, in LBO “around 14 euros”.

In addition, the public utility company has rented rooms at the station: a women's and a men's toilet and a lounge.

Fay does not readily accept the idea of ​​making these rooms available to other bus drivers: “We pay the rent.

And the rental contract with the train is not exactly cheap!”

The district pays its bus drivers less than the city

It is difficult that the district now pays its drivers just as well as the public utility company.

Metzner calculated it like this: If the driver were to receive an additional 2 euros per hour, 2.82 euros per hour would be due – since the bus company that the district has commissioned to operate its lines should also be able to claim its share.

According to Metzner, the district of Dachau alone would incur additional costs of 800,000 euros a year.

Albert Herbst, the department head responsible for public transport in the district office, said to the district councilors in the committee: "If the federal and state governments don't give us more money, we'll have a huge problem with the traffic turnaround!"

But both Löwl and Metzner were skeptical about the hoped-for windfall for local transport in the Munich area.

Therefore, the planning is now more like this: If nothing changes with regard to the driver problem, scheduled trips will be discontinued at weekends or on public holidays in order to gain free resources for school transport trips during the week.

You can read more news from the Dachau region here.

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Source: merkur

All news articles on 2022-10-18

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