Staff cars and rotas

News · 8 November 2026 · All news

Two big additions have arrived in Schedulo Bus over the last few releases, from 1.0.24 to 1.0.26: staff cars, so drivers who travel by car to take over a bus are planned and costed like the rest of the day, and a Rota tab, so the duties go straight into the rotas your drivers work.

Staff cars

Drivers who go by staff car (Duty Travel) are put on staff car runs, several drivers in one car, from car pools you set up in the new Preferences › Staff Cars.

• Car pools: each pool has its cars, their seats, where they park, who drives (a car driver duty, one of the riders or the controller), its hours and its cost, and serves interlining groups or routes. A pool for each interlining group makes them in one go.
• Optimise plans the cars. It puts drivers needed about the same time in one car where waiting costs less than another car, and a car bringing a relief takes back the driver it relieves. Waiting for a car is costed, and a waiting rule limits it. Runs you lock stay as they are.
• No teleporting cars. A car its drivers drive and park only leaves from where it was last parked, and is never driven empty. Only a car with its own car driver duty makes empty drives.
• Fewer car runs, Balanced or Less waiting, along the top of the Staff Cars tab. Compare costs plans the day each way and shows the runs, cars, waiting and cost of each, so you can pick the one that suits.
• Who drives each run is yours to choose: one of its riders, a car driver duty, or a new duty that only drives staff cars. Add a passenger… puts any duty on a run.

The Staff Cars tab

The Staff Cars tab is drawn like the Vehicles and Drivers views. Each car is a row over the hours, its runs' legs shown as chips pointing the way they go, with each stop's name, who gets in and out, who drives and how many ride. The cars are numbered straight through the pools (Car 1, 2, 3…) and the chart zooms with + and −. The R box on the Drivers tab shows a driver's car.

• Staff car issues point out a car too full, in two places at once, too late, outside its pool's hours or with nobody to drive it, a car left where its next run does not start, a driver waiting too long, or a pool short of cars.
• Staff car running boards sit beside the vehicle and duty boards in Print running boards, with the same templates and styles: who drives each run, every stop with its times, and who gets in and out.
• A staff car sheet to print or save as CSV, and the duty schedule and duty running boards say which car a driver takes, whether they drive it, when it leaves and with whom.

For a step-by-step walk-through, see the guide How to plan staff cars in Schedulo Bus.

Rotas

A new Rota tab, next to Staff Cars, puts the duties into rotas: a line a row and a day a column, like a spreadsheet, with copy and paste. Each day holds a duty from that day's list, Rest, Spare, As required, or a mark of your own, typed or picked.

For a step-by-step walk-through, see the guide How to use rotas in Schedulo Bus.

• Your crew rotas head the list, from Preferences › Rotas, and new rotas can be added to them.
• Rotas that roll every week or every few weeks, keep fixed lines, or roll in groups.
• Hours at a glance: each line shows its days worked, spread and paid time, and the average week is weighed against your hours target. A line's spread and paid time can be set by hand for a line of mostly Spare or As required, never less than its duties add up to.
• Rota issues say where a duty is missing or doubled, rest is too short, or a line is off its working pattern or hours target.
• Temporary rotas for bank holidays and Christmas: a few dates in place of the usual week, each with that date's own duties.
• Preferences › Rota Settings: the first day of the week, a line's length, how hours are counted, Spare and As required hours, the hours target, the working-day pattern, the least rest, how strict each check is, and your own marks. A rota can have settings of its own.

Rota exports

Print or save the rota sheet, line cards, the weeks ahead, a temporary rota notice, duty coverage, all rotas together, a summary, or an Excel workbook.

The Roster export saves a .SchBus file with every duty in full and the rotas, ready for Schedulo Roster, our crew rostering product coming next. Give it a name, Valid from and Valid to dates (or leave the end open), notes, and choose whether to add the temporary rotas' dates; Schedulo Bus shows what the file will hold before it is saved. It also works for a company with no rotas set up.

Also fixed

• The aims in Optimisation settings › Aim for can be ticked, unticked and moved again.
• Optimise always keeps to the hard rules in the Preferences first, the buses' and then the duties' (including staff cars), before the soft rules and what Aim for asks.
• Where a stop has no sign-on or sign-off, you choose where drivers sign on and off instead: the depot, another relief point, or nowhere.