General manager at Ventura buses Omar Najmeddine pleads for commuters to be patient when relying on replacement buses. Credit:Paul Jeffers “I try to be calm," Mr Najmeddine says, recounting panicked calls he gets from contractors who co-ordinate rail replacement services during a meltdown. He received another one of these calls on Monday afternoon, when commuters faced delays of up to two hours during peak hour on the Cranbourne and Pakenham lines. More than 50 buses were sent to transport passengers between Caulfield and Oakleigh stations, but they were not enough to pick up all of the hundreds of commuters left stranded in the heat. Stranded commuters waiting for a replacement bus at Caulfied station on Monday. Credit:@TonyB_Melb, via Twitter

"When there are too many 'panic heads' around you, it creates problems," Mr Najmeddine says. He knows that commuters hate using infrequently-running, slow-moving buses instead of trains. Weeks-long rail works have added up to 75 minutes to some journeys. But Mr Najmeddine, who runs rail replacement bus services for Ventura – the company transporting commuters during rail closures in Melbourne's east and south due to level-crossing removals, Metro Tunnel works and general maintenance on the network – pleads for some understanding. “Look, we know the customers are frustrated because it’s frustrating to transfer between modes … jumping from a train onto a bus onto a train, that’s frustrating.

“Everyone is trying their best to make it as simple and undisrupted for passengers.” Rail replacement bus services are big business in Victoria. Government contracts span several years and are worth millions of dollars, as the Andrews government marches ahead with its major infrastructure pipeline. Seven years ago, Ventura had just five buses available for rail replacement services. But with the rail work ramping up, Ventura's train replacement bus fleet has now grown to 50 and will grow to 70 by the end of next year (on top of the 890 buses owned by the company).

The company calculates that it needs about two or three buses for a single train carriage, depending on how full the train is. Ventura has also hired an extra 70 drivers just for the rail replacement services. During major works, nearly 300 drivers and more than 100 buses are needed – most of which is provided by Ventura. Drivers can be contacted at 4am to help with unplanned disruptions, only to have their job cancelled soon after they start because the problem was resolved. There is also the issue of navigation: Ventura drivers mostly cover the south-east, so when drivers head to a new area, there's a risk they will get lost.

Mr Najmeddine says Ventura developed a special app that maps out all the train replacement routes, to help drivers figure out where to drive. And, there is the issue of frequency. Without having priority on the road, the rail replacement buses can't match the train services, one for one. This is in partly due to a lack of available buses and drivers, but more crucially, it's due to road congestion. One way the company tries to deal with the problem is by providing “standby drivers” who swoop in and do additional runs to reduce any lag time.