Focus needs to be on bus driver recruitment for West Yorkshire - YEP Comment

So there is an irony that, as world leaders look set to gather in the UK to discuss how we can tackle climate change, buses are back on the agenda.

Regional transport experts fear that a shortage of bus and taxi drivers is impacting public transport in West Yorkshire.

While public transport usage has recovered “significantly” for weekends, there are concerns that bus operators have vacancies for around one in 10 drivers’ jobs - twice what they would normally have.

And ultimately recruiting new drivers was proving “challenging”.

There is the obvious knock-on impact that this will have in terms of reliability.

How can you tempt people to leave their cars behind when they’re not even sure the bus they want to use will turn up on time?

At a time when we are looking to be cleaner and greener, we really need to pull out the stops to retain and gain new bus drivers.

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