Local bus drivers on loan to Zurich

At present, the Zug ZVB company has too many drivers. Not that are being laid off; they are on loan to Zurich for a ten-month period.

It was as recently as 2013 that the ZVB company was short of drivers, bearing in mind the increasing services offered by the company at that time. However, when it became apparent in 2015 that the canton’s finances were not what they were, it was decided to cut back and reduce the timetable by 5.5%, for example by cutting down on schedules providing quarter-hourly services.

All this has led to a situation, of course, where fewer drivers are needed. Indeed, the ZVB company confirmed earlier this week that nine of its drivers will be helping out in Zurich for a temporary period of ten months. As Gabriela Kaufmann, a spokeswoman for ZVB, confirmed, this all came about through one of their drivers noticing in the press that drivers were needed by the VBZ company in Zurich.

For his part, Hanspeter Kälin the interim head of operations at ZVB, said how very happy he was with this pragmatic solution, enabling Zug drivers to gain experience in driving around in a big city, though they will continue to be employed by ZVB.

As Thomas Rieser, a spokesman for the VZB company, explained, the Zug drivers are being deployed on diesel routes, meaning they will be ferrying passengers on the routes from Zurich Oerlikon in the north to the Triemli hospital in the south, having been given a seven-day course in advance. “It is very good that we have been able to solve our staffing problem in this way,” he said.
 
Of course, the Zurich network is much greater than that of Zug, as the following statistics show. Whereas the VBZ employs a staff of 1,500 drivers (including those on trams) only 216 are employed at the ZVB, doing the equivalent of 200 full-time jobs. This compares with 219 drivers in 2015.
 
Kaufmann mentioned what high demands are made on drivers. “Not only do they have to have passed a special test, they have to be able to maintain high levels of concentration throughout their working day, be able to cope with stressful situations yet still be of a friendly disposition. What is more, they have to be competent in Swiss-German.”