Split shifts, early spreads and a run that changes with the sign-up
Transit work is built around peaks, which produces the split shift: a morning run, a long gap, then an evening run. On any ordinary calendar the gap looks like an afternoon off, and it is not — it is unpaid, often too short to go home, and it is why a nine-hour paid day can take thirteen.
The schedules this actually has to cope with
Freeish is built around these, not around a nine-to-five with the occasional exception.
Split shifts
Morning peak, a long unpaid gap, evening peak. The spread can exceed twelve hours.
Early spreads
A first run before five in the morning.
Sign-up or bid runs
Runs are picked periodically by seniority, so the whole shape changes several times a year.
Extra board
No fixed run at all — you cover whatever is short.
What it sounds like at home
- “The gap in the middle looks like an afternoon off and is not.”
- “My run changes at every sign-up and my family has to relearn it.”
- “Early starts mean an early bedtime nobody plans for.”
- “On the extra board I do not know my week until it happens.”
- “A thirteen-hour spread reads as a nine-hour day.”
Where Freeish fits
A split goes in as two events, so the gap reads as unavailable rather than free.
When the sign-up changes your run, import the new one rather than retyping it.
Early nights before an early spread can be visible.
Extra board days can go in as they are assigned.
One week, start to finish
Ray, transit
- Ray puts his split in as two runs with the gap between them.
- His wife stops treating the afternoon as free.
- The sign-up changes his run and he imports the new one.
- An early spread means an eight o’clock bedtime, and it is on the calendar.
- Extra board days go in as they are assigned.
Questions bus and transit drivers ask
Can it show a split shift properly?
What happens at sign-up?
Does my employer see it?
Stop being the schedule. Start sharing it.
Now on iPhone — Android coming soon. Free to start. Import a photo of your next schedule and see who stops asking.