Trapeze Blog Cracking the Code: Can Rostering Simplify the Bidding Maze for Newcomers?

By Kristi Urich Entering the world of public transportation can feel overwhelming for new employees, much like navigating rush hour traffic. The complex bidding process in transit jobs for work schedules is a major challenge, especially for those unfamiliar with the system. It’s like trying to solve a puzzle without a picture.   Despite education efforts from recruiters and trainers, many newcomers remain confused or are surprised when they first experience the seniority-based bidding system. The reality can be harsh. This stress, combined with difficult schedules, leads to high turnover rates. Unfortunately, it often takes years to gain enough seniority to ease these challenges.   Why is Bidding So Hard? New employees have a lot to learn—driving large vehicles, navigating city streets, getting used to different vehicles, developing customer service skills, and driving in various conditions. While still mastering these skills, they face their first bid which is often anticipated with high anxiety. Understanding that seniority affects work selection is one thing, but experiencing it is another. Common concerns include:   Difficulty understanding the “bidding wall”   Selecting a suitable schedule   Multiple paper resources that are hard to use   Overwhelming speed of the bidding process   Lack of live support during bidding   Recognizing these issues helps agencies create strategies to reduce new employees’ anxiety and frustration. Improving the bidding experience can lower attrition, boost morale, and maximize the return on recruitment and training investments by retaining new drivers.   Navigating the Bidding Wall: A Patchwork Quilt of Unbid Work   Most agencies post hundreds of pages of run details for employees to review when selecting their bid request. For agencies with cafeteria picks—where employees can choose different work each day and select their days off—the wall or board is even more detailed, listing every run for every day individually. Awarded work is often color-coded, making the wall look like a patchwork quilt. By the time new hires bid, it’s hard to find the unbid “white space” among the awarded work.   Senior employees usually take the same work during weekdays, but as Sat/Sun off combinations disappear, employees start taking desirable work with a weekday off. This leaves “orphaned” pieces of work scattered throughout the week. The remaining unbid runs left for the most junior operators can vary in start time, routes, and bus type, creating a jumbled work week that adds to job stress.   Rethinking Rostering: Simplifying the Transit Bidding Process   Rostering can help by packaging work with consecutive days off and consistent daily runs. This simplifies choices, allowing employees to make one decision instead of seven. It also makes it easier to find unbid work because there are fewer records to scan. Additionally, rostering can reduce mandatory or scheduled overtime. The scheduling team gains more flexibility to cut runs, minimizing unpaid spread time and roster weeks that combine shorter and longer days while ensuring the minimum hours are met for the work week.   If fully rostering isn’t an option, consider these alternatives to make it easier for less senior employees to find and build a seven-day schedule that complies with work rules and has a more consistent pattern of start times and routes.   Introduce a small number of rosters: Start by introducing rosters as a pilot program - rostering regular work weeks, adding 4x10 compressed work weeks, or roster less desirable schedules with better days off to balance the schedule. Increase the percentage of rostered schedules in future sign-ups based on demand.   Pair days off: Allow employees to select consecutive days off rather than individual days, ensuring everyone has a “two-day weekend.” While this doesn’t simplify the bid, it does increase all employees access to adequate recovery time each week, decreasing risk of burnout.  Require the same runs on weekdays: This reduces “orphaned” runs and improves the chances of a consistent work week for more employees, while still providing flexibility when picking Saturday and Sunday work.   Reserve some desirable days off with second pass “relief” work: Offer more senior employees, who are more comfortable with a variable schedule, an incentive to get desirable days off while opting to pick from the unbid weekday runs on a second pass. This increases the likelihood of less senior employees getting a consistent weekday schedule.   Hybrid Bid: Start with cafeteria selections for the first 60 to 80% of the workforce (which could be combined with any of the above strategies). Stop the bid at a predefined point and then build rosters from the remaining days off and runs, balancing consistency and maximizing paired days off while ensuring rest time rules are followed. This provides more employees with compliant bid work. While reducing the number forced on the extraboard, it also reduces unbid runs that must be filled daily by the next-day scheduler or dispatcher.   By adopting these strategies, transit agencies can transform a potentially overwhelming experience into a smooth and manageable transition, helping new employees find their footing more easily.  Be on the lookout for part two of this blog series, where we’ll explore how leveraging technology and providing mentorship can make the bidding process even smoother, helping employees navigate the complexities with confidence and ease.   CONNECT WITH US