The driver shortage across the UK has now spread into the bus network as public transport staff swap bus routes for work as truckers.
The wage increase promised to attract new HGV hauliers has led public transport staff to make a change, impacting the number of journey's on offer and resulting in the axing of others.
Bus drivers can earn £32,500 on average, but can now earn up to £78,000 behind the wheel of a lorry instead.
Operators blame road haulage bosses for w88ok poaching their drivers, and have said they now need 4,000 new recruits just to keep the industry moving.
Bus drivers can earn £32,500 on average, but can now earn up to £78,000 behind the wheel of a lorry instead.
Nearly one million letters have been posted across the UK, asking HGV licence-holders who have left the industry to return.
Bus drivers are also being targeted in the recruitment drive.
As a result, there are now pockets of driver shortages across the country, with areas in Scotland, the north east of England, Bristol and south Gloucestershire being hit hardest.
Bosses at First West of England have said the problems are 'unlike any other the UK transport industry has faced', and blame a mixture of poaching, the coronavirus, Brexit and strike action at the DVLA for the shortages.
In Scotland, some services have been cut from half hourly to hourly, with First claiming it is 17 per cent short of the number of drivers it needs to run a full service in the region.
Elsewhere, economic costs are on the rise, threatening to eat into the higher wages predicted by Prime Minister Boris Johnson