Brian Rispin, Yorkshire Coastliners' operations manager in Malton, checks forecasts up to seven days in advance to manage his fleet of 20 buses which take hundreds of passengers from Leeds, Tadcaster and York to Scarborough, Whitby, Filey and Bridlington.

"We pride ourselves on our service and looking after our passengers," said Mr Rispin. "If people wake up in the morning, look out of the window and see it's a lovely morning they'll decide to go to the seaside for the day. On the other hand, if it's raining, they'll stay at home! So getting it right is quite difficult but really important for us."

Mr Rispin begins by reviewing the seven and five- day forecasts before looking at the more exact predictions the night before. It helps, he said, to have a "great bunch" of drivers who understand the need to be as flexible as possible.

"They are very good at radioing in with information about the number of people travelling," he added. "If a bus is already by the time it leaves York, we can have another bus ready to pick up the passengers waiting at the stops.

"We can't even relax when we get all our passengers to their destinations – we have to get them home again. If it starts to rain around lunchtime they'll want to come home early and we'll have to make sure we've got the buses to cope.

"On the other hand, if it's a really nice day, quite understandably, they'll want to stay on into the evening! Our drivers always tell us how many people they dropped off in the morning in Whitby or Scarborough so we know how the evening is likely to go."

But there are times when Yorkshire Coastliner can face last-minute challenges and has to react immediately, such as one situation last summer.

"For some reason about 100 passengers decided to go to Whitby in the morning but as soon as they got there it started to rain and they all decided to go on another bus service along the coast to Scarborough. We just happened to have an extra bus there and so we were able to get everybody home without longer queues or delays."

He added: "But it's not just in the summer that we have such challenges. A few winters ago one of our buses was stuck in a huge traffic jam going into Scarborough, there'd been a huge fall of snow and the traffic was going nowhere. There were only three or four people on the bus and a driver did his best to keep them informed about what was going on.

Unfortunately two of them needed to 'answer a call of nature'. Luckily the driver was only a few hundred yards from his house and so he locked up the bus and took his passengers home so they could use his 'facilities'.

"The fortunate passengers regard him as a friend for life!"