Location: South or West of England - Bristol or Portsmouth
The First Bus Network CoE is responsible for bus service performance and producing the day‑to‑day operating plan for our fleet across the UK. Data and route performance analysis is key in managing our service profitability and reliability.
Our core services include designing bus routes and timetables, creating vehicle and driver duties to ensure operational efficiency and complying with regulatory requirements. Using advanced planning systems, the team also prepares contract and tender bids for First, all with the goal of supporting reliable and customer‑focused delivery.
Position Summary
The Schedules Manager oversees the scheduling function within one of the organisation's core businesses, ensuring the delivery of efficient, compliant, and cost‑effective duty and roster schedules.
Reporting to the UK Head of Schedules, they manage a team of locally aligned Senior Schedulers and Schedulers, driving performance, innovation, and alignment with operational and strategic goals.
The role is pivotal in supporting workforce wellbeing, service delivery and business growth through effective planning, stakeholder engagement and continuous improvement. The role holder will collaborate cross‑functionally with Network Planning, Operations and HR to align schedules with strategic service and workforce goals.
Key Responsibilities
* Scheduling Strategy and Optimisation: Lead the development and optimisation of driver duties and rosters, ensuring alignment with operational efficiency, driver wellbeing and service delivery objectives for their respective business or area.
* Cross-Functional Collaboration: Collaborate with Network Planning, Network Process and Governance, Operations and HR to ensure schedules support workforce availability, retention and strategic service objectives.
* Trade Union Engagement and Escalation: Act as the primary escalation point for trade union engagement on scheduling matters if a solution can't be addressed, ensuring compliance with agreements and fostering constructive relationships.
* Governance and Service Change Compliance: Ensure their team's adherence to Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and Service Change Checkpoints across all scheduling teams.
* Resource Management and Team Resilience: Work with the process and governance sub‑function of Network to guarantee workload balancing and resource allocation across scheduling teams, ensuring resilience and high performance.
* Crisis and Contingency Planning: Contribute to crisis and contingency planning, ensuring scheduling flexibility and responsiveness to service disruptions.
* Continuous Improvement and Innovation: Drive continuous improvement in scheduling practices, embedding best‑in‑class tools and software, governance and performance frameworks.
* Regulatory and Operational Compliance: Oversee compliance with regulatory requirements, including driver hours legislation, local agreements and data submissions (e.g. BODS, DAS, Ticket).
* Bid and Franchise Support: Support integrated tender and franchise bidding processes with robust scheduling analysis and modelling.
* Ad‑hoc support: Other duties commensurate with the role as may be deemed appropriate by the UK Head of Schedules.
Skills & Experience
* Leadership and Team Management: Strong leadership experience, with a track record of managing and developing scheduling teams.
* Analytical and Planning Expertise: High level of numeracy and data literacy, with experience in workforce planning and optimisation.
* Technical Scheduling Proficiency: Proficiency in scheduling systems (e.g. Optibus) and understanding of scheduling principles and constraints.
* Communication and Stakeholder Engagement: Strong stakeholder engagement and communication skills, including trade union negotiation.
* Commercial and Financial Acumen: Commercial awareness and experience contributing to budgeting, forecasting and tender processes.
* Regulatory and Legal Knowledge: Knowledge of regulatory and legal frameworks related to driver hours and scheduling compliance.
* EV Management: Experience in managing scheduling for electric vehicle (EV) fleets is desirable.
* Performance Under Pressure: Ability to work in a high‑pressured environment consistently delivering on objectives within timeframe.
* Local Operational Insight: Geographical knowledge of the areas of operation and responsibility is preferred.
* Performance Under Pressure: Ability to work under pressure, manage competing priorities and deliver to tight deadlines.
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