Depot visits
We would rather stand on the apron at shift change than collect a tidy monthly summary by email.
A visit is the core of the utilisation board. If you only want a spare cover pack from scanned sheets, we can work from Alston — but the wall board still needs someone who has watched your briefing.
Who should be on site
The person who owns the morning briefing, the workshop foreman if maintenance columns will share the wall, and whoever holds the keys to the card rack. Drivers do not need a meeting. We will not take a full hour of the transport manager’s calendar if they are not the one marking the board.
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Before we travel
You send seven days of running sheets, the current VOR list, a photograph of the wall or table you intend to use, and a note on whether night shift updates anything. We agree a date that includes a live briefing, not only an office slot after the buses have gone out.
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Yard walk
High-vis, introduced to the gate. We walk parked vehicles, the washer, and the VOR corner. Helen will ask which fleet numbers “always sit” according to the yard, then check that against the sheets.
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The briefing
We sit where the duty clerk sits. We do not present. We note which facts are spoken, which are written, and which arrive as a shout from the workshop door.
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Paper draft
Before we leave, columns are sketched on paper in the supervisor’s office or canteen. If a heading will not survive the night shift, we change it there, not a fortnight later on a screen.
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Aftercare
You use the working copy for a week. Two amendment rounds cover headings, colour keys, and spare-vehicle rows that failed in practice. That is part of the board fee, not a new visit, unless the wall itself changed.
Where we travel
United Kingdom depots. Alston is the postal and desk address. A visit inside a three-hour rail radius is included in the visit-day fee. Longer journeys are quoted. We have worked PSV yards in the north of England, a coach workshop in Wales, haulage in West Yorkshire, and a school-contract office in Fife. We do not claim a national network of offices.
If a visit is not possible
Inspection lists and spare-cover archives can start from scans. A utilisation board without a briefing is a guess; we would rather wait for a date than invent columns from a spreadsheet exported for our benefit.