Coverage in the City
The editor has passed for my attention two letters from drivers that are both interesting and extremely relevant to the problems being experienced by the Call Centre.
   Laurence Kelvin (W88) refers in Mailshot as to how busy the evenings are compared to the days and the pressure this places on the night drivers to hold on to accounts. Laurence gives an example of a Wednesday evening in October whereby he is referring to the amount of work we have in the city and on the island. This is the norm for most evenings. Day men only see such high volumes of work on train strike days.
   You may be interested to know that the day shift handle as many calls as the evening shift, but that the majority of their work - some 90% in fact - are pre-bookings. With the evening shift handling a vast number of ASAP rides, then added to those pre-bookings taken during the day, the pressure that is placed on the driver who is working late is not surprising.
   There is without doubt, the need for many of you to consider changing your work pattern. How we can encourage you to do this, I just don't know. It would be interesting to find out why drivers will not work when there is a greater demand for their service. Is it the old chestnut of "...I've always worked these hours, why should I change now?" I sincerely hope that isn't the case.
   However, with the large 

volumes of journeys expected, I would ask everyone to consider  working a couple of hours longer or even change your hours completely. I promise you that it  will make a great deal of difference to the coverage and service we provide as a Society. Your earning potential will be far greater and in the new year when customers look back, they will be reluctant to take their business elsewhere.

Emergencies
   David Brett (P93) asks three questions in Mailshot of which two are concerning the Call Centre.
   Having more positional information regarding an emergency is not practicable at the moment. When an emergency button is activated, it's the voice channel that is affected and it stops operating for the fleet while remaining locked in on the driver with the problem. I don't know why we show a call sign on your terminal. I believe I'm right in saying it's been there since day one. Should a driver find himself in a serious situation, the controllers are instructed to get help. Once they have ascertained where the driver is and what type 

of problem there is, messages are sent to the fleet asking for assistance.
   To give automatic information of a driver, we would need to locate his position before sending out a message. The only way this can be done automatically is by a tracking system in the vehicle. I am pleased to say that the vast  majority of the emergency messages you see appear are false alarms. A driver stretching a leg can accidentally touch the emergency button and quite often this is the case.
   As for messages being raised to a slightly higher level, I am a little puzzled at what David is asking for. Does he wish the messages to be more precise, more humorous or just simple and to the point? The controller has one prime objective and that is to ensure the work is covered. As individuals, they have their own ideas on what encourages drivers to respond to their requests. As drivers, you all respond differently to whatever is written. I'd like everyone to understand that regardless of the type of message we send out, there is just one reason that appertains to all of them: We have a customer requiring our services and we cannot match their request to one of you.
   Personally, I like to see messages that make me smile but which also make the point about what could happen if we don't cover the job.

Keith Cain