A key bus route from Manchester to Bolton has been had many services cancelled due to a lack of drivers.
It was reported earlier this month how bus servies across Greater Manchester were being hit by a lack of drivers as companies were ‘battling’ with the fallout caused by the national HGV driver shortage.
The government's call for people with a HGV licence to return to that industry saw many bus drivers leave their operators, leaving Stagecoach saying they were at least 70 drivers short at a Greater Manchester transport committee meeting.
This has now led the operator to cancel a number of services in Greater Manchester this month.
The 38 service from Logistics North to Manchester Piccadilly is one of five services affected.
A number of journeys are not running, and are as follows:
Service 38: Logistics North to Piccadilly
0719, 0803, 0853, 1010, 1456, 1516, 1556, 1630, 1725, 1829
Service 38: Piccadilly to Logistics North
0621, 0658, 0744, 1401, 1441, 1511, 1601, 1701
A Stagecoach spokesman said: "Like the rest of the UK we are short staffed at the moment. We are working hard to get this sorted and return to normal as soon as possible. Where we do have to cancel a bus, we are providing live updates on twitter @StagecoachGM.
"We apologise if you are affected by these short term service changes, and we would like to thank you and ask for your patience with our frontline teams whilst we work to get our new drivers on the road."
Other services which have been hit by cancellations include the 34A from Worsley to Piccadilly, the 219 from Piccadilly to Ashton, the 250 from Piccadilly to The Trafford Centre, and the 256 from Piccadilly to Flixton.
Diamond North West, who operate a number of services in and around Bolton, are yet to announce any cancellations due to driver shortages.
However, at the Greater Manchester transport committee meeting, Matt Rawlinson, deputy managing director for Diamond Bus operator Rotala, said they were 'having a battle' with staff shortages.
"We’ve invested in new training vehicles and we’re currently recruiting more instructors and obviously putting a lot of emphasis on recruitment to bridge that gap," he said.
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