A capital city is extending night buses through winter so hospital staff leaving the evening shift are not waiting on a road with no other service. The extra runs stop short of the outer suburbs. Beyond that point the authority says the numbers do not fill a bus.
Unions called the limit arbitrary. A nurse who lives past the last stop will still be on a private hire, which is the cost the extension was supposed to remove. The transport office said it will count passengers for a month before adding a further stop.
What happens next
Drivers for the extra service are being drawn from a volunteer list with a night allowance, not from a compulsory rota. That choice kept the agreement inside a week. A compulsory rota, the union said, would have taken a month and arrived after the coldest part of the season.
Hospitals will post the timetable in the staff room, not only online. The night shift, a matron pointed out, is not looking at a website at the end of twelve hours.
Taj Today will update this report if the official numbers or the timetable change. Related coverage stays on the World page.
