I live outside of London and our buses definitely do not stink - they are extremely clean. The bus drivers are extremely helpful and the buses are ecuipped with ramps for wheelchair users. I think in the US people who use buses are looked down on, which is certainly not the case in Britain - everybody uses them, especially when visiting a city so you don't have to worry about parking as often parking spaces are very limited.
Same, our bus drivers here are very helpful and buses fairly clean (not by the end of the day though)! Can’t say much about the train, it’s clean-ish and they run. I rarely see any staff on them.
Mostly true. Some people definitely look down on people for using the bus. I use public transport, buses and trains, to commute and I've definitely experienced a few odd looks from colleagues when I mentioned catching the bus. It was once said, for example, that "anyone who uses the bus after the age of 25 is a failure in life". However by and large most people don't look down on bus users. Buses aren't always clean unfortunately. I had to sit by a pool of vomit on my way back from Cheltenham recently. Not a nice experience. Oddly, or perhaps not so oddly depending on your point of view, buses tend to be cleaner in poorer areas in my experience.
@@alexmckee4683 i live in cheltenham never seen puke on a bus & i use one every day to get into town. i will grant that's possible late @ night because we are a university town so have pissed up kids going home.
@@smileyemilyful Even with going home from town, at least where I live, it's not usually stinky? I mean maybe if someone's being obnoxious and vaping on the bus, but other than that I've never been on a bus that has smelt bad.
@@jeanlongsden1696sadly, now a lot of buses are tap on tap off the public don't feel the need to interact with the driver. Luckily where I work we still accept cash and so get face to face interaction with passengers. It is always nice to get a hello and thank you.
Agreed. Also I have never been on a bus that smelled bad or was dirty. It used to be that some folk drop stuff on the floor of the bus, but end up picking it back up because of the other passengers giving them dirty looks for littering! I have only ever experienced politeness or jokiness from drivers.
I have experienced plenty of them in half the time riding buses. I always thank them, but many have still been rude, driven past me when I've hailed them, tutted at me because I gave them a note, actually said to me "I'm not taking that" because I gave them a note, I've seen them shouting at people for nothing, and so on. However, conversely, I have had some very good bus drivers, who have let me on without paying because my phone had ran out of battery, or because I only had a note and they hadn't the change, and ones who have stopped for me because I hadn't made it to the stop in time. Some people are rude, some aren't.
My son was a bus driver for ten years in London the good thing about driving a bus it gave him patience and polite attitude we relocated to Scotland and he is now a advance paramedic.So it was good training for him.❤
Buses in the UK have designated stops with usually a pole and road markings or a layby for the bus to pull into, but they don't stop at all of them automatically. If they're ahead of schedule and people might be on their way for the official time at that stop, they'll often wait, but if nobody on the bus hits a stop button and there's nobody stood at a bus stop waiting they won't stop there.
One source of embarrassment as a Brit - hiding from the bus or trying to indicate that you don't want to catch the bus that is pulling up when you're the only one at the stop. I will usually put up my hand if the bus is the one I want but I don't want them to stop if I'm not catching it.
@@billyhills9933 I'm 71, always when waiting for a bus I indicate (put my hand out) to indicate I wanted to catch it. Some bus stop serve several different routes, (buses have numbers on the front and rear indicator board), and if you don't want that particular route you don't put your hand out, (other people may want it an indicate). If I'm the only one at the stop I may stand back, shake my head to let the driver know he can just keep going. In London of course, with so many people it's quite often the bus will end up stopping at all (or most) stops. There are bell pushes at various places for people to signal the driver they want to get off at the next stop. Years ago buses were crewed by 2 people, one the driver and the other the conductor who would pass around the bus to collect fares and issue tickets. Then they went to single crewed where the driver would take fares and issue tickets as you boarded (and issue change if you didn't have the right money). These days I don't know if they still take money and issue tickets, mostly people (in London anyway) use the Oyster card (or possibly tap and pay credit/debit cards). It's always been polite to say thank you as you get off, to the conductor in the old days, to the driver if it's single crewed. Mind you some buses have doors at the front and middle or rear as well (some may also use one door to get on, and the other to exit - speeds up passenger throughput). I've been housebound for the last 6 years since I could use a bus so I may be out of date. With the Oyster cards they was a daily cap on fares, after which if you used buses (or the tube) a lot then essentially free.. With buses it was only necessary to "tap in" when you got on I think. On the tube you had to tap in when you entered the station and tap out when you left a station, but not between platforms at interchanges. Other towns and cities may have different systems, check before assuming they all work the same way.
Hi guys, when I retired I got rid of my car and now I use public transport, when you reach retirement age you get a free bus pass that means I can travel on the buses for nothing which is great, the majority of bus drivers are very pleasant and helpful, the bus stop 🚏 is only a 2 minute walk from my home and the buses are every 15 minutes, if I'm going to Portsmouth city it takes about an hour, if i go to town it's a 12 minute ride, there's also free internet access on the buses which is great on long journeys, there are bus stops along the way for offloading passengers and picking passengers up, in my area the buses start running at 6 am until 11:30 p.m. great video guys. 👍🏼
@@reactingtomyroots ,Hello If you visit the UK and want to get from London to Scotland. the cheapest way is to get to Victoria Coach Station, it's about 5 or 10 minute walk from Victoria Train Station. The Coaches are called National Express. Of course it takes about 10 hours, but you get to see some beautiful countryside The lavatories are tiny and not pleasant. so take advantage of the Scheduled stops along the way.
My mum is 84 yrs old and every week she takes a bus with her trolley bag and goes shopping. When she returns with her trolley bag full of food, the driver helps her load the bag onto the bus and I wait for her at her destination to bring her and her shopping back home. She won’t let me drive or go with her and I stay at home to look after dad. She loves her independence and wants to keep going for as long as she can.
Hi, I am a new bus driver in Bristol in the SouthWest of England. I started six months ago. You gain two qualifications/licenses from your training, A PCV (Public Carriage Vehicle) Licence and your CPC (Certificate Of Professional Competence). You take Three weeks of training and over those three weeks, you need to pass four separate Modules: a Theory Test, a Hazard awareness test, an off-road maneuvering test, which is basically reversing a bus. The Practical Driving test which is an Hour of Driving on live roads, and your Module 4 test which is a bus safety test. When you have all these, you are then a Bus Driver. You then have a month of driving with a mentor to learn routes, as there are no Sat Navs in buses and you must drive them from memory. It took me three weeks to learn 21 routes. You are paid while training and for the first year you are paid £1.00 an hour less than other drivers. You are bound to First Bus for at least TWO years as the company invested a large amount of money in your training. After two years you can move to other companies with no issues. I hope this is useful info for you.
@samhilton4173 Training pay is £14.50 hr. When you are signed off from you mentor and doing the routes on your own it is £15.00. After first year it is £16.00
When you get to the UK do remember that double-decker buses aren't just in London. You'll find them all over the country. It's great to be on the top deck while going round London, but going through scenic countryside (Dorset is one of my favourites) is even better.
There are buttons all along the bus to press the bell when you reach your stop. Heavy traffic would make you behind schedule, and the bus will usually only stop at designated bus stops
@lottielou3167 and sometimes then, only at ones where passengers are waiting or if someone has pushed the "stop" button. (The button sounds in the driver cab, and usually lights up the "stopping" sign at the front of the bus
If it is a bus stop, the the driver is obliged to stop at those stops, however if it is a request stop, if you don’t put your arm out, the bus driver is not obliged to stop. Also, if the bus is full and no one presses the bell to stop, then the driver goes past even if people at stop. This applies to London buses. Hubby was a driver for many years and in the bus industry for 40 years.
Very simple rule I used to have, treat your passengers with respect and be polite, then when you get a difficult or aggressive passenger your other passengers will support you
The driver doesn't usually drive the same bus all day. They'll change to another bus at the bus station, replacing the driver who is probably ending his/her shift or maybe switching to drive another route themselves. The driver will pick up rubbish left on the bus during his shift, but the depot does employ cleaners to clean the buses and disinfect them ready for the following day.
You commented on the rubbish in the bus - I must tell you that the first time I visited New York I had to walk through ankle deep trash to get to my seat. I then had to watch the bus driver drinking from something in a brown paper bag as we went down the ramp from the Port Authority building.
Just don't sit at the back upstairs if you have a bad back. Some routes have speed bumps on the roads and mu god if your not expecting it you get bounced around
Lindsay, judging by the other rubbish that woman was spouting, I'm not surprised she had "bad experiences"... I felt highly sggrieved at her negative attitude too.
Remember that in the UK, as in the rest of Europe, there are no specially designated "yellow" school buses. In rural areas, some bigger schools may hire private buses to ferry pupils from distant villages. On the whole, though, if pupils live too far from school to either walk or cycle, they take a regular bus, or in bigger cities perhaps the underground or a train if their attending specialist schools.
The designated school buses in my neck of the woods (NI) are generally yellow and white and are operated by the EINI and are strictly for schools only. What part of the UK are you from?
In North Somerset, uk, there are school bus routes that either local coach companies or bus companies provide. Depending on age of child and distance from the school, it may be paid for by the education authority or parents have to pay for it.
At school in rural Cambridgeshire in the 1970s, attending a village collage we had four or five independent coach companies to pick up from little villages, paid for by the local education board.
In the local market town in my rural part of England all the school bus services are provided by the local independent bus company, they use about a dozen double decker buses on school services twice a day.
Some of the schools I work at have bus routes using regular service buses that begin or end at the school. They are for schoolkids only though, which is annoying if you're staff and don't have a car. Having said that, I know of one route that takes nearly two hours. No thanks.
In the UK the classes are as follows: A is for motorcycles, B is for cars, vans, B+E is for a cars, vans and trailer. C is for commercial vehicles / heavy goods vehicles over 3.5tonnes, C+E is for Articulated lorries (semi and trailer as you say in the US), D is for a bus or coach D+E is for a bus and trailer. For commercial vehicles (Buses and heavy goods you also need a CPC licence which stands for Certificate of Professional Competence. This needs to be renewed every 5 years. You also need a Tachograph card which you insert into any commercial vehicle tachograph unit in order to log your working and driving hours. There are restrictions in some of these licence categories for instance, if you pass your driving test in an automatic car, you cannot drive a manual transmission car. Pretty much everyone in the UK passes their test in a manual transmission car but there are some people who choose to take their test in an automatic.
@@jeanlongsden1696 and Category Q for for 15 mph mopeds with motorcycles having 5 different categories depending on engine size, power, weight and the age of the rider.
In the 60s the driver was completely separated, only getting in and out from a cab at the front outside of the bus, we had male/female conductors, who took the fares and rung the bell when you got off and on. Happy days😂
One of the bus drivers where I live got an award for being the happiest and friendliest absolute legend. He's very well known around here even to those of us who don't get the bus. Crazy you guys don't have buses where you are...we have so many bus routes there's not many streets without bus stops every 150 feet...A local knitting group has decorated many of the bus stops and post boxes here too with different amazing knitting creations it's very sweet. I noticed this morning a post box with a knitted soldier and poppy on top ready for remembrance day. This town is beginning to get quite scary as most places in the UK are but there are still good people here and things like that are a nice reminder 💞
As an ex bus driver, i found the average passenger a pleasure. Usullay a "morning/afternoon drive" and a "cheers drive" as they leave. Routes are timed to the minute, so any minor prang, or even being stuck behind a garbage truck could put you 40 minutes behind the route plan. It does literally take a month to go from driving a honda civic to driving a double decker 🙈🤣🤣 The older buses will just have "blowers" instead of air con. But the newer veichles do have air con. Alas sometimes the controls for heat/cold is set by the engineers rather than the driver. Being stuck in a plastic cube on a hot sunny day whilst hot air blows is truly not enjoyabe 🤣
The average wage in the UK is £34,900 - and that average is massively offset by a small number of people who are earning millions. So many people in the UK are earning 29k or less. I doubt any bus driver would be earning 40k, even if he is getting overtime on the top of his basic wage. According to Glassdoor, the average wage with add-ons is £32,500 and that's just in London. Outside of London is £25,500.
@Millennial_Manc true, but the higher the wage, the less people. People in London for instance do get paid a lot more than someone in a more rural town/small city. The vast majority of people live outside of London
The old Routemaster style bus had an entirely separate drivers cabinet with no access to the passengers but those buses also had conductors. Up until the mid to late 80's most buses across the country would have conductors who took the money and gave out the tickets.
Wow only twice? From when I first started catching buses to go to high school till when I stopped about 20 years later, I was catching buses 5-6 days of the week anywhere from 2 to 4 buses at a time to get to school/college/work or days out with friends etc. I never thought about it, but it means I have been on thousands and thousands of bus rides 🤯
It's such a cultural insight to see Steve's perspective. I live in a city and our buses run every 8 to 12 minutes. My 16 year old has taken 20 public buses a week by himself since age 11, and I never even thought until now that an outsider might find that remarkable.
Should look up the sitcom "on the buses" 😂 it's an absolute classic 😊. Should look in to the railways too, if so the Dr Beeching report that destroyed much of our rail network would be interesting to look into. It also created some of the heritage lines so not all bad, plus some are being brought back to life with one called east West rail due to open to passengers next year connecting Oxford and Milton Keynes/Bletchley for 1st time since I think the 1960's
Thanks Mark! We'll have to add that one to our list :) And yes, we still need to dive into the railway system as well--looking forward to that. Hope you're having a good week.
On double decker buses the stairs tend to be behind the driver, this creates a bulkhead that prevents passengers from either distracting or assaulting the driver from behind, in addition there is a closable door with a screen to protect the the driver. The driver uses interior mirrors/cameras to monitor both decks so there is no need to turn round to check whether passengers are getting on and off at stops. Many years ago I spent five years driving an urban bus, it is amusing to see they still not have fixed the problem of keeping cool in summer and warm in winter. The problem in summer is in urban environment the expanse of glass coupled with standing in dense traffic heats the air in the cab (try sitting just behind a big window on a sunny day). while having stop every 200 yards to board passengers makes air conditioning pointless. Winter is the same, the only difference is a blast of cold air replaces the hot air.
Yeah, it was a periscope and a mirror they could look up at on older buses but nowadays its just a screen showing CCTV of the upper and lower interior.
To answer 8:02 question, the learner bus is a dedicated bus not used in service and will usually have been retrofitted with dual controls (allowing an instructor or examiner access to brakes). The learner will then progress onto a normal in-service bus after passing all modules of the licensing tests.
The buses used to be of such a design that the driver was completely physically separated from the passenger area with a conductor/conductress taking the fares. Eventually the bus companies or local authorities running the bus services decided they were paying too much in wages, so a redesign of the classic double deckers removed the drivers cab and put him in the body of the bus. So drivers now operate the ticket machines, drive the bus and depending on the driver deal with any difficulties. In Glasgow we used to have all double deckers with single decker coaches used by services from outside the city, today there are very few double deckers with the vast majority of our bus services being coaches. Drivers can be rude, they're just human after all and can have bad days like we all can. Yes buses do have heaters and a/c and in Glasgow anyway, the heaters are only to be used in the summer with the a/c used only in winter ☃️❄️😁 The driver is also behind a plastic screen to protect them from being physically assaulted or spat on. The two main bus operators in the UK are Arriva and First Bus with a lot of smaller carriers. There are cameras on the buses and buttons in plenty of places for a passenger to indicate they wish to get off.
There buttons to push when you want the next stop also verbal communication, its just awareness its their job they will know it inside out, some elderly people have to wait until the bus is stationary before attempting to leave so cant be at the door ready to get off when the bus stops.
Driving a double decker for the first time is definitely an exciting and scary moment lol. They have some amazing engineering points in thier build (like the amount they can lean over). The driver has a massive mirror looking down the bus on his level, and a screen displaying the camera feed (this is also where the reversing camera shows up when in reverse, if its working lol). All drivers are enclosed generally. Especially in cities and since covid. You can pay for tickets by tapping your debit card, or by buy a prepaid card, or a "day travel ticket" which will let you travel on in a specific area or along a route unlimited amounts all day long (its a way to save money if your travelling). Depending on the company. You could have to learn upto 100 routes, and could be placed on any one of these routes at any point (as routes get changed or a driver will get ill). I think there were about 8 different bus models being used by the company at the time too, so you have to jump in, sign on, set up your ticket machine, and readjust to the new bus in about 2 minutes. Its a high pressure job. Your essentially drivining in rush hour traffic all day every day, upto 10hrs a day. i dont know a sjngle person who "enjoys" commuting 🙈, but the passengers and the views of the city make it worth it imo
You are right about the front seat upstairs. Kids can pretend they are driving the bus and when you grow up we still think that! It's fun and a great view.
Hi. In London public transport falls under the elected Mayor of London as TfL (Transport for London). This includes the road bus stops and shelters, the bus routes and timetables, and the bus fares and ticketing. The various bus routes are bid for by private companies who run the bus garages, employ the bus garage staff and drivers and buy, run and maintain the fleet of buses (in this case at this garage it is Arriva). That is why you have different types of buses run by different companies and possibly the buses he is driving are older models where the heating and cooling for the drivers and passengers may be a bit unreliable. Newer buses have more sophisticated components such as heating, cooling, charging points, hybrid or fully electric, etc. In terms of TfL’s river buses, the same system applies (although because there are fewer routes on the river than on the roads the franchise is normally held by only one company instead of the many on the road bus routes). Currently Thames Clippers runs the river bus franchise (hence the sponsorship of their fleet of river buses by Uber - but to be clear Uber has nothing to do with setting the routes, timetables or fares nor for the ticketing - that, along with the piers, are all TfL). TfL is also responsible for the London Trams in south and south-east London, the Cable Car over the River Thames in east London, the free Woolwich Ferry - for both passengers and traffic - across the River Thames in east London, the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) in east and south-east London, the London Overground railway, the London Underground (Tube) railway, the London Cycle Hire scheme, Victoria Coach Station and the coach stops and shelters within London - although the coaches and drivers, routes and fares / ticketing are the responsibility of the various coach companies - so not the same as for the road buses, the licensing of the taxis/drivers (black cabs) that are based in London, the licensing of the private hire vehicles/drivers (minicabs, Uber etc) based in London, and the ownership and maintenance of the main through roads (Red Routes) in London (the other roads, streets etc are the responsibility of the respective London Borough they are located in - or the City of London if located there). I may have got a bit of the terminology or specific details a bit muddled, but that is the basic concept for London’s public transport. Remember that the City of London is only 1.12 square miles (711 acres) and the remainder of London (the 32 London boroughs) make up the remaining more than 605 square miles of London, so there’s a fair bit of public transport of different sorts around.
Buses vary a lot. When I was first catching buses, "air conditioning" was opening the windows 😅 when it was cold in the winter, some of the buses would turn on the heaters which ran across the floor on the side of the buses. Many years later when I was just starting to stop catching buses, they introduced a fleet of new more modern buses with wifi, charging ports and proper air conditioning. I don't think that the average bus is like that though
@LilMonkeyFella87 definitely becoming like mini offices lol. But the advent of WiFi and charging ports definitely comes in handy when the drivers on a break. Some have plug points too, for laptop charging. And we are still talking your low level commuting busses, not even a cross country "coach". Some of them are like first class flying these days lol
The United Kingdom is the largest user of double decker buses in public service, other countries do use them but at a much far less rate. Outside of the UK double deckers in Europe are most prominent in Skopje, Berlin and Dublin. Double deckers are also used in Hong Kong, China and in Egypt. They are also used in India and Singapore and there are also very small numbers of them operating in Canada and Mexico.
Bus drivers access the bus by the same door as the passengers, but he/she has a partially-enclosed cab opposite the passenger door, which obviously is on the near side (left) of the bus. Until the early 80s it was normal for buses to have a driver and a conductor, known commonly as a 'clippie' because they issued and clipped tickets and they collected the fares. The driver was in a fully-separated cab that was accessed by an off side door. From the 80s onwards all the buses, whether double or single-deckers, became driver-only buses and the off side door disappeared.
The bus companies employ cleaners, many of whom work at night of course. BTW, if you are fairly tall, the front seats on the top deck don't have much leg room. Regular buses will only drop off or pick up passengers at official stops. Community' bus services that have some public-funding, and serve more rural areas, will drop you virtually at your door, if it's on the route. They use much smaller vehicles, often 16-seaters, and like the one in my area may use volunteer drivers. We also have a 'flexi-bus' service, using the minibuses, that has substantial funding from local government to serve areas not well-covered by regular services. You can book these online (or by phone) to pick you up at a certain time and place, and drop you at your destination.
There’s lots of channels that have bus driver POVs so if you were interested in seeing more of country or perhaps how bus drivers and passengers interact then you should take a look at those
@Lindsey, with well organised transit you don't really have to wait long. I can't remember since when I had to wait for more than 5 or 10 minutes for a bus, except after the big thunderstorm a couple of years ago when a bunch of trees fell on the streets making circulation impossible for a lot of busses and trams, but even that situation was sorted out in a few days and it's not like you get a major storm like that very often. For the rest of the time, when the networl works well the waiting time is really minimal, and often it gets faster to just ride the transit system than to drive.
It’s less freeing in the US because your are on someone else’s schedule because it’s so infrequent, but in a lot of places the transport is so frequent it’s really not that much of an issue. In London Tube trains are usually every 2 minutes, and buses are incredibly frequent - so barely a change to your schedule
You could watch: ‘How to take a London bus Beginners Guide’ which is a London to Ride production or another one is: ‘New Yorker rides a London bus for the first time’. Both are quite short but still interesting.
I'm a bus driver in Manchester, which I've been doing it for 35 years. Being a bus driver in London is no different from driving a bus anywhere else in the uk. Every city or town all has double Dec busses. All busses are all the same they have a button on the bus you push the button and a bell rings in the drivers cab. I would say all the big bus companies you don't have the same bus or do the same duty everyday. You don't clean the bus off wash it or fuel it up. You can pick rubbish up off the bus if you want or just leave it it's up to you.
Maybe you would enjoy learning about / reacting to the articulated "bendy bus"? London dropped them to replace them with more double deckers but they are in other UK areas.
I used the buses for years. You have to press the button when approaching the stop you want giving the driver time to stop unless someone has already pressed it. The bus drivers have always been friendly and made me laugh a few times, I had a sprained ankle once and limping of the bus one bus driver shouted over to the other bus driver saying... He wasn't limping before he got on that's your driving that's done that! 😂
Bus drivers being rude? They're BRITISH, of course they're not rude, its years since ive been on a bus but i cant EVER remember any of the drivers being rude 🇬🇧
I don’t use the bus very often, I do however use the bus when I’m off on a social night with friends in town . I’ve always had a friendly driver and I do always say thank you getting off the bus
I manage a bus company in London. All our buses have air con. If the air con stops working we take the bus out of service until it gets fixed. Same if the heating stops working in the winter.
The Route Masters in my younger days were the best! Jumping on and off when it slowed down at traffic lights, bus conductors with ticket machines. Happy days :-)
Ding ding, room for one more on top, anyone remember that? The buses are one of the things I miss about living in London, you could get a bus anywhere, to the shops or to take the kids for a day out around Trafalgar Square and Green Park or out to the countryside.
Driving buses in London isn't especially difficult. The traffic is stressful but most of the routes use pretty big roads. Small town and rural routes are much more challenging driving. And you have to know a lot more routes. I was once on a rota with 32 routes I had to learn.
I think Greyhounds are like our long distance inter-city coach services (National Express is one, but there are other services). You would ride on one of these for several hours, with just one or two stops at other cities en route, or a rest stop at a motorway sevice station if the driver has reached their maximim permitted drive time). These coaches require you to wear a seatbelt. They usually have a toilet installed, aircon and lights with individual controls over each seat like on aeroplanes, and the newer ones all have wifi and USB charging sockets. A very different kind of journey experience from local busses. I prefer trains for long journeys (more comfortable, you can move around more, change seat, visit the buffet, and I can read without feeling sick!) but coaches are a lot cheeaper usually.
They only stop at the bus stop if someone wants to get on or off at the stop - you still have to press the bell, or put your arm out if you’re at the stop
We have to press the bell to get off but we don’t have to put our arm out at the stop, here where I am in North Wales. In fact the bus drivers usually acknowledge you by waving at you to ask if you want to get on.
My mum was a bus driver for many years so she is going to answer the questions you have here... Everyone learns on a double decker, this allows for you being able to drive any of the buses be it midi or double decker, midi buses tend to have a longer over hang (Distance between back wheels and the end of the bus) and so you have to take things a little wider when turning with them. you work shifts, the guy saying he only works 7/8 hours but gets paid for 11 etc is because he is on what they call "Spread overs" it means you have a long break between your shift due to cap on hours allowed to drive, all bus companies are now private, Ariva is just one of them, my mum worked for Stagecoach, you learn all the routes not just one as you can do several different routes in a month, the drivers cabin area is enclosed with a door, bus checks inside to be done at every stand point and you always check over your bus on the outside before you drive. There are buttons to signal stop at next bus stop for people to get off but there are also mandatory stops that the drivers all have to stop at, (White bus stops are compulsory stops, red ones are request) the driver has a big mirror and cameras to see into that shows the upstairs area, the stairs and the back doors that allows them to see people getting on and off. The driver was 40 mins behind schedule due to delays in traffic, on his time sheet he is meant to be at every major stop point at a certain time, if you are too early, you get booked by any inspectors that may be there, if you are late and it becomes a significant amount of time, you get curtailed, they change your end destination to a nearer stop and you turn there to go back the other way, time keeping is essential as a bus driver, this is to make sure that there is a fluid service and you don't get buses all turning up at the same time, that way passengers get spread out and buses don't get over full and it keeps a regular service.
When you say everyone learns on a double decker is that the entire country? Like would a bus driver in Milton Keynes do their training in a double decker
@@minovictor I maybe should have considered other parts of the country, I only know about London or at least the garage I worked from so can't answer that question, I would assume if they don't have double deckers in that specific area then no. I actually took my test in a coach though I learnt to drive a bus in a double decker.
I lived in London from birth until I was 29 so I used buses a lot. I never had a bus driver be rude to me but I haven’t experienced them being very friendly but I don’t blame them really , people aren’t really friendly to them and often act like they are invisible , particularly now the payments are often contactless. Getting the front seat upstairs never gets boring 😅
only when i was a kid i'd experienced an angry bus driver moment when some anti-social kids from school caused trouble, one thing led to another the driver decided to take his anger on all the passengers and whizz past all the bus stops we needed to get off
When it comes to getting on and off the bus, getting on the bus, you’d usually stick your arm out at the bus stop to hail the bus if it’s a stop that serves more than one service and tap a pass or pay the driver (outside of London). Getting off, there’s a bell you press to indicate that you want to get off at the next stop (more now have information boards to say which is the next stop so that if you’re not local to the area, you know where to get off etc).
I live in the South West of England. As a Pensioner, we have free bus passes, which are valid on public transport anywhere in the UK. If you travel the main routes (town to town) the timetables are usually every 10-15 min peak times and around 20-30 min off peak. So you can plan when to leave home and catch your bus. Our drivers are very friendly and helpful, if you are not sure where you are going, which stop you need, mention it to the driver, and they will call out to you when you get there. Otherwise, you push a button and a screen near the drivers cab lights up to alert the driver to stop at the next stop. I got rid of my car years ago.
@@petersmithm9 Each of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland has its own free bus pass for pensioners and disabled people, but they aren't interchangeable. So Scottish pensioners get a pass that they can only use in Scotland, English pensioners get a pass they can only use in England, etc.
Loved to travel the old Routemaster double deckers as a kid with my nana, upstairs, up front right hand side, and look down the wee periscope at the driver as he drove. And years later as a teen, jumping on and off the back of a moving double decker.
Buses get backed up through traffic and other buses overtake the full bus in front, so u get 3 buses at once at rush hour, so they start somewhere else, there are heaters and windows for passengers, we have double deckers and low long buses, bus stops are about 5-10min between bus stops (well devon where I live). The plastic was put up through covid but some are for safety of people trying to rob the driver or try and attack driver, I've used more buses then I've been in a car lol
Bus services will vary across the country. In some more remote places a route may only run once per week, as opposed to once every 10 minutes in central London. The modern Routemaster buses are *not* air conditioned and are absolutely horrible to be on the upper deck on a hot day. Their windows don't open either. Short guide to getting on a bus: 1) Find the route number and direction you need. E.g. the number 12 to Dulwich library. 2) Find your nearest stop along the route and be on the correct side of the road. 3) When the bus comes, signal clearly that you want this bus (as stops will be shared by many different routes) like you were hailing a taxi. 4) Pay via contactless card. 5) To get off, press the button to ding the bell and be by the door when it stops.
My mates and I would go bus riding when we were kids, buy an all day pass for about 1.50 then ride around Cardiff all day on the old orange double decker buses 😂
Generally speaking in Europe there are areas where not having a car can limite your ability to travel, but even in this areas you don't rely on the car alone, as the car and public transportation in the worst case supplement each other.
@alicetwain got to love a "park n ride". Big car park, next to the train station or it will have its own bus stop and route.... for major shopping areas or for city centre trips.
@@c0wbag49 I actually don't since I don't drive at all. Besides, the local station is ten minutes from my apartment and the main stations in Milan are all served by one or two subway lines.
Great reaction again Steve and Lindsey. I am 56 years old and seen the changes in buses since travelling to school on a bus as a kid. Most of today's buses are square and hybrids. (electric and diesel). When I was a kid, red Double Decker's were rounded shape diesel buses and quite smelly from the smoke from the diesel and engine oil. No doors on the old buses, just an open gantry on the back to hop on and off the bus. No health and safety in those days either. Instead of buttons like on the buses today to press and ring the bell to stop the bus at the stop. Those days, there were pull line cords on the ceiling going along the whole end of the bus on the upper and lower levels. Just tug on the line to ring the bell and stop the bus. Lastly, there were two operators on the Double Decker's back in the day. One was the driver and the other was the bus conductor who walked up and down the bus with their little mechanical ticket machine collecting fares. 20 pence for a ride in those days, now it is £1.75. 🙂
On the iconic London Routemaster bus which were built between 1959 and 1968 the bus driver literally has the cab to him/herself. The Routemaster bus also has a conductor to help issue tickets and to give advice to passengers with regard to journey information as well as calling out the stops along the way.
His bus check was dubious at best. He didn't check the operator and MOT discs were in date, he didn't check the operator's address and registration plates were visible, he didn't check the fire extinguisher, the windscreen washer and wipers, the horn, the wheel nut indicators, interior and exterior lights, the wheelchair ramp, destination board, emergency glass-breakers, driver seat and window adjustment, footbrake, handbrake and steering functionality, the stop bus bells or the hand rails. Or maybe he did but just didn't record it.
MOT discs, do they still have them? i thought they stopped them quite a few years ago, regardless given the way the content was made I doubt he would have videoed everything single thing involved, maybe we could cut him some slack in that regard rather than pointing out things that were not shown in depth. Personally I think he did a good job in covering the basics of the day, kudos to the guy.
@@Danielsonoftheshires MOT discs in windscreens are no longer required by law but drivers are responsible to make sure the bus has a valid MOT so the company I worked for did put a disc in the window displaying the last MOT date. There is a strict checklist to go through before a bus goes into service and you'd be surprised how many drivers complete 'checks' without even leaving the driver's seat. That's the point I was trying to make.
@@dominicjohn8954 When I was a driver I never had to check the bus had a valid MoT certificate. That was dealt with by the engineering department and we had no daily access to the maintenance records anyway. All we had to check was that the tax disc and operators licence were present and in date plus the other standard checks.
My brother is a bus driver in Exeter, Devon. In Winter he freezes, in Summer he cooks. His bus is large - it was a double decker last time I asked. His wage is not impressive for the hours AND the responsibility involved. His main shift starts at 4AM, when he takes the company car and picks up 3 other drivers, to get them to the depot. That means he has to get to the depot, leave his motorbike there, get the car and go around the city to fetch others. Then after checking the bus has been cleaned and refuelled, etc, his shift with the public begins at 4.45am. He works for a straight 5 hours before he can take a break. His route does include picking kids up from areas not served by a dedicated school bus, but isn't generally for that purpose. He finally gets home around 14 hours after leaving. (the drive into Exeter takes him about 40 minutes each way)
Transport for London (TfL) operates the largest bus network in the world with a fleet of 8000 buses. TfL also operates the Tube (Underground), Overground trains, Trams, Docklands Light Rail (DLR), bicycle hire scheme, a ferry service etc. As a Londoner it’s so easy to get around the City.
You can get a mix of double decker and single decker training buses across the country. Most training buses are older buses that retired from normal passenger work
My mam was a 'ducky' back in the 50's and 60's, means she was a conductress who took the money from the passengers and gave them a ticket, the driver was in a seperate compartment back then. My mate was a driver 20 years ago driving double deckers past my house, one day he took bad (loo) and had to go really bad, he pulled up with a bus full of people, ran up to my door, came straight in and beelined it to the loo, the look on the passengers was priceless. We used to leg it upstairs to try and get the front seats as well.
10:44 To answer a few of your questions. 1) Drivers at Arriva are trained on one route, and the allocated buses to that route. Drivers can learn other routes to do overtime, but this is not compulsory. One thing that is important to note, you cannot drive a route that uses buses you are not type trained for. 2) Arriva is a private company that is self sufficient from profits. 3) The London bus model works by private bus companies bidding to run routes, TFL will assign contracts to run bus routes for a set period of time, and will specify the allocation of bus (e.g. single or double deck, diesel, hydrid or electric etc). 4) The drivers cab is protected with an assult screen on the cab door. Drivers have been assaulted badly in the past, so Transport for London specified drivers assult screens to be fitted. 5) Drivers buses change each day, cleaners work at bus garages to clean buses once they have done their day's work. Buses are allocated based on the routes they operate. For example, DW565 can do route 121 on the Monday, and then DW565 can be on route 349 the next day. 6) Drivers have a mirror in the cab that provides a view for the rear doors that drivers use.
I had one grab my hand once to inspect my weekly ticket. Unwarranted, I'd shown it for several seconds before he decided to grab my hand. But on the whole it's definitely unusual to have a rude bus driver.
To put salaries into perspective. The median salary for the entirety of the UK is £34,963 so bus drivers could be considered underpaid even outside of London standards. The median salary for London is significantly higher at £44,370. However to be considered a comfortable lifestyle you would need to be earning in the £50-60,000 region as a single person, significantly more for a family income.
Most people thank the driver when they get off, it's sort of a tradition. Historically, bus drivers were an awkward lot and some conductors, too. They were known for driving off quick if they saw you hurrying to catch the bus. That was the perception anyway and some bus crews have admitted to doing it.
I don't know where you heard that, but it is untrue. If you are late they will not wait for you, as they have a schedule and must think of the other passengers who board the bus on time. If you miss the bus it is YOUR problem, not theirs. Face it, it is not in their best interest to be mean or rude, so why would they do it?
@@sharonmartin4036 search for this online (chronicles-of-a-1960s-bus-conductor) my local bus company in the 1960's. Probably very different now I accept, I was talking about the past. No bus conductors these days and drivers have to deal with the public.
I've probably taken more buses than Steve in a single day before. I pay £66 a month for unlimited bus and tram riding in Edinburgh. Our boy Baz gets all buses and coaches free in Scotland until he's 22.
When I was a kid In the 60's we had a new bus driver who didn't know the route to take us to school. I lived in a county area with small county lanes ,we told the driver it was a short cut if he went this way. The poor man believed us. The road was so narrow he got the bus stuck on several occasions, it was the best journey to school we kids ever had. 😂
We do have specific buses that are only used for training here. For example my local bus depot is also a training depot, and the buses have different paintwork and are usually older buses, both single and double deckers, recently withdrawn from public use due to age, usually from between 2005 and 2010. Their interiors are also modified so that learner drivers can easily be observed by instructors, by removing the panel between the cab and passenger area and installing an instructor’s seat next to the cab. There are also usually table seats installed midway down the bus so that assessors can easily take notes during a journey (and can also be used as a mobile classroom). Usually these buses also have additional training mirrors to help drivers learn about positioning, blind spots etc. Hope this helps 🙂
Hi, Just to answer some of your questions as a citizen of Yorkshire in the UK, And the manager of the Barnsley Stagecoach Bus Depot and Operations, London is built on 3 different bus operators which are branded under one, so the 3 Main ones are Stagecoach, Arriva and First Bus, they are all however branded under TFL (Transport for London). It goes the same for here in Yorkshire, here in South Yorkshire we have Stagecoach, Arriva and First Bus, which however are they're own brands which have their own bus tickets, and our branded for themselves, but they get funded by TSY (Travel For South Yorkshire), and it goes quite similar for everywhere else. To answer your question on the Training Bus and whether that can be used as a normal public bus, the answer is simply no, these busses are adapted for the Driver Mentor to also have control of the the basic vehicle controls like pedals and brakes and the parking break, the seats are made of wood, typically just covered by fabric just for the looks, and aren't meant for real life use. Our Busses do not have air conditioning unless the bus is a Yutong E10/E12, these are the new electric busses which do have air con, but a standard ADL Enviro 200/300/400 -- EV or not, they will not have air con for the passengers. The Driver may have a fan installed. Transport for London (TfL) fund Arriva/Stagecoach in London, but also may be funded by the public. Leaving trash on busses only happens really within London, and they are mostly clean outside of London. Typically within busses in London, the head route display control has a camera (cctv) module within it so you can view the cameras that way while also change the running board (The Display at the front, side and back of the bus showing the route number and name) But, on busses outside of London, there would be a small display with the cameras cycling between the different ones (subject to Double Deck or Single Deck, on single decker's the bus only has a door next to the cab so they can see people getting off that way and or there is a passenger mirror so the driver can see as well. Just to correct you on this, They don't stop at every stop, they will only stop if there is a person at a bus stop who has put their hand out (especially will only stop if you put your hand out if that bus stop serves multiple bus routes!) He was 40 Minutes behind schedule due to a diversion on the bus route he had not knows about.
Inter-city coaches which are advanced ticket, have the driver in the same space as the passengers. In local buses, the driver is handling money (less so these days), so the shield is for security.
8:20 All of the Training Buses used to be in Passenger service at one point in their lives. In fact, I've been on that particular Bus before! It depends on the Garage the Buses run out of, as some would use both single and double Decker Buses to Train the Drivers. Depending on the route and depending on what Garage it is. There's a bell push button on the majority of the handrails and that will notify the Driver that someone want's to get off at the next stop. There's a Camera (CCTV Screen) in the Drivers Cab, to see when the Passengers leave the Bus through the rear doors above the Driver's head.
From the age of 6 I went to school by bus (public, not a school bus, 30 minutes each way). There are "bus stops" of two types in London - one where the bus always stops, and "request stops" where it only stops if someone on the bus rings the bell, or someone at the stop puts their hand out. Distances between stops vary from a couple of hundred yards to half a mile or more (in the countryside). The bus stop is either a pole with a sign at the top, or a shelter with the sign on that.
Most bus drivers do drive from bus stop to bus stop, but in some areas they also have a hail and ride service which allows you to flag down a bus anywhere on its route and then stop the bus and also stop the bus at a place of your choosing without a bus stop. This very convenient and if you time it right you can get off right outside of the place you going to
I drove buses for 37 years around Newcastle upon Tyne NE England o various routes. Passengers ring the bell to tell the driver they want off at the next bus stop and the driver has mirrors to check on them getting off. The air he was talking about was the air pressure for brakes and door operation, making sure the air pressure was at correct level. I retired in 2008.
The vertical rails have a button which rings for a stop. Some of the bus stops will have an arrivals display stating the time until the next bus on the routes at that stop. Your Greyhound buses are what we would call coaches and go longer distances between cities and generally have a rest room.
Arriva started out in life as a chain of car dealerships in Northern England called "T Cowie", then created Arriva when they branched out into public transport when it was privatised, doing both bus and rail services. It is now owned by Deutch Bahn (DB), the national rail operator of Germany.
I drive for arriva in my home town, we have about 20 routes to learn and drive frequently each week, London is different, you have one or two routes. It’s a great job, I agree with him about every day being different and the passengers get to know you. It is a very stressful job but worth it 😊
Londoners make more money because its sooo expensive.. London is *busy so I can understand a bit of "grumpy". Other parts of England are OK, friendly and funny. There are cams on all buses, both inside and out.. We all say "Thank you" as we get off and pass the driver!! Thank you guys.
As a kid I always loved being on the top deck on the front seat. Event better when the bus drivers through like narrow country roads and the top deck is whacking into all the tree branches :D
Where I live it is very common to say thank you when getting off the bus. I like that
It's common in most places.
@@benabel7326 That makes me happy
I also say thank you when I have got my ticket from the machine. Sometimes I ask the driver if he/she is ok and wish them a good day as I get off.
Same here in Glasgow.
it's the only way to do it.
I live outside of London and our buses definitely do not stink - they are extremely clean. The bus drivers are extremely helpful and the buses are ecuipped with ramps for wheelchair users. I think in the US people who use buses are looked down on, which is certainly not the case in Britain - everybody uses them, especially when visiting a city so you don't have to worry about parking as often parking spaces are very limited.
Same, our bus drivers here are very helpful and buses fairly clean (not by the end of the day though)! Can’t say much about the train, it’s clean-ish and they run. I rarely see any staff on them.
Mostly true. Some people definitely look down on people for using the bus. I use public transport, buses and trains, to commute and I've definitely experienced a few odd looks from colleagues when I mentioned catching the bus. It was once said, for example, that "anyone who uses the bus after the age of 25 is a failure in life". However by and large most people don't look down on bus users.
Buses aren't always clean unfortunately. I had to sit by a pool of vomit on my way back from Cheltenham recently. Not a nice experience. Oddly, or perhaps not so oddly depending on your point of view, buses tend to be cleaner in poorer areas in my experience.
Friday night and Saturday night can be a bit stinky with people going home from town
@@alexmckee4683 i live in cheltenham never seen puke on a bus & i use one every day to get into town. i will grant that's possible late @ night because we are a university town so have pissed up kids going home.
@@smileyemilyful Even with going home from town, at least where I live, it's not usually stinky? I mean maybe if someone's being obnoxious and vaping on the bus, but other than that I've never been on a bus that has smelt bad.
I used buses for years and not once was a driver rude,they were mostly happy and joking with people.
I agree and it is always courteous to thank the driver as you get off.
If you find one that speaks a English you’re lucky.
@@jeanlongsden1696sadly, now a lot of buses are tap on tap off the public don't feel the need to interact with the driver. Luckily where I work we still accept cash and so get face to face interaction with passengers. It is always nice to get a hello and thank you.
Was this in London specifically? Most bus drives where I live are mostly rude
@@Andreaod73 and are you courteous to the driver?
I’ve been riding the bus for over 70 years and never had a rude driver. I always thank the driver
Same here !!
Agreed. Also I have never been on a bus that smelled bad or was dirty. It used to be that some folk drop stuff on the floor of the bus, but end up picking it back up because of the other passengers giving them dirty looks for littering! I have only ever experienced politeness or jokiness from drivers.
I always say thank you, it is second nature
I have experienced plenty of them in half the time riding buses. I always thank them, but many have still been rude, driven past me when I've hailed them, tutted at me because I gave them a note, actually said to me "I'm not taking that" because I gave them a note, I've seen them shouting at people for nothing, and so on. However, conversely, I have had some very good bus drivers, who have let me on without paying because my phone had ran out of battery, or because I only had a note and they hadn't the change, and ones who have stopped for me because I hadn't made it to the stop in time. Some people are rude, some aren't.
Glad to hear that!
My son was a bus driver for ten years in London the good thing about driving a bus it gave him patience and polite attitude we relocated to Scotland and he is now a advance paramedic.So it was good training for him.❤
Patience would be key, I'm sure 😅
Bus drivers are usually helpful. Plus we always thank the driver when we get off the bus
Buses in the UK have designated stops with usually a pole and road markings or a layby for the bus to pull into, but they don't stop at all of them automatically. If they're ahead of schedule and people might be on their way for the official time at that stop, they'll often wait, but if nobody on the bus hits a stop button and there's nobody stood at a bus stop waiting they won't stop there.
One source of embarrassment as a Brit - hiding from the bus or trying to indicate that you don't want to catch the bus that is pulling up when you're the only one at the stop. I will usually put up my hand if the bus is the one I want but I don't want them to stop if I'm not catching it.
@@billyhills9933 I'm 71, always when waiting for a bus I indicate (put my hand out) to indicate I wanted to catch it. Some bus stop serve several different routes, (buses have numbers on the front and rear indicator board), and if you don't want that particular route you don't put your hand out, (other people may want it an indicate). If I'm the only one at the stop I may stand back, shake my head to let the driver know he can just keep going. In London of course, with so many people it's quite often the bus will end up stopping at all (or most) stops. There are bell pushes at various places for people to signal the driver they want to get off at the next stop.
Years ago buses were crewed by 2 people, one the driver and the other the conductor who would pass around the bus to collect fares and issue tickets. Then they went to single crewed where the driver would take fares and issue tickets as you boarded (and issue change if you didn't have the right money). These days I don't know if they still take money and issue tickets, mostly people (in London anyway) use the Oyster card (or possibly tap and pay credit/debit cards).
It's always been polite to say thank you as you get off, to the conductor in the old days, to the driver if it's single crewed. Mind you some buses have doors at the front and middle or rear as well (some may also use one door to get on, and the other to exit - speeds up passenger throughput). I've been housebound for the last 6 years since I could use a bus so I may be out of date. With the Oyster cards they was a daily cap on fares, after which if you used buses (or the tube) a lot then essentially free.. With buses it was only necessary to "tap in" when you got on I think. On the tube you had to tap in when you entered the station and tap out when you left a station, but not between platforms at interchanges.
Other towns and cities may have different systems, check before assuming they all work the same way.
@@billyhills9933Yes, that's annoying, especially if the driver has to cross 3 lanes just to get to the stop and no one wants it.
The top front seat is the best, no matter how old you are or how often you've taken the route previously.
Wish I could get up the stairs !
Except when you reach an overhanging tree that hasn't been pruned properly. Then it becomes a thrill ride. 😄
I knew it! :) Hopefully we can experience it one day for ourselves.
Low bridge….
Exactly, I'm always bummed when they're taken lol
Hi guys, when I retired I got rid of my car and now I use public transport, when you reach retirement age you get a free bus pass that means I can travel on the buses for nothing which is great, the majority of bus drivers are very pleasant and helpful, the bus stop 🚏 is only a 2 minute walk from my home and the buses are every 15 minutes, if I'm going to Portsmouth city it takes about an hour, if i go to town it's a 12 minute ride, there's also free internet access on the buses which is great on long journeys, there are bus stops along the way for offloading passengers and picking passengers up, in my area the buses start running at 6 am until 11:30 p.m. great video guys. 👍🏼
That's awesome! Love how accessible using the buses is over there. :)
@@reactingtomyroots ,Hello If you visit the UK and want to get from London to Scotland. the cheapest way is to get to Victoria Coach Station, it's about 5 or 10 minute walk from Victoria Train Station. The Coaches are called National Express. Of course it takes about 10 hours, but you get to see some beautiful countryside The lavatories are tiny and not pleasant. so take advantage of the Scheduled stops along the way.
My mum is 84 yrs old and every week she takes a bus with her trolley bag and goes shopping. When she returns with her trolley bag full of food, the driver helps her load the bag onto the bus and I wait for her at her destination to bring her and her shopping back home. She won’t let me drive or go with her and I stay at home to look after dad. She loves her independence and wants to keep going for as long as she can.
Hi, I am a new bus driver in Bristol in the SouthWest of England. I started six months ago. You gain two qualifications/licenses from your training, A PCV (Public Carriage Vehicle) Licence and your CPC (Certificate Of Professional Competence). You take Three weeks of training and over those three weeks, you need to pass four separate Modules: a Theory Test, a Hazard awareness test, an off-road maneuvering test, which is basically reversing a bus. The Practical Driving test which is an Hour of Driving on live roads, and your Module 4 test which is a bus safety test. When you have all these, you are then a Bus Driver. You then have a month of driving with a mentor to learn routes, as there are no Sat Navs in buses and you must drive them from memory. It took me three weeks to learn 21 routes. You are paid while training and for the first year you are paid £1.00 an hour less than other drivers. You are bound to First Bus for at least TWO years as the company invested a large amount of money in your training. After two years you can move to other companies with no issues. I hope this is useful info for you.
My neck of woods, or Yate to be more precise. 😊
Is training pay the same as first year wages?
cheers drive 👍
@@mattp558was just going to say the same 😅
@samhilton4173 Training pay is £14.50 hr. When you are signed off from you mentor and doing the routes on your own it is £15.00. After first year it is £16.00
When you get to the UK do remember that double-decker buses aren't just in London. You'll find them all over the country. It's great to be on the top deck while going round London, but going through scenic countryside (Dorset is one of my favourites) is even better.
That's awesome! I love that they're all over, because I think the countryside would be great to see that way as well.
Takes some skill getting up and down the steps while the bus is moving!
@@reactingtomyrootsthere's some beautiful bus routes by the coastal roads. It's a great way to explore!
@@reactingtomyroots although not all rural routes are suitable for double deckers as the tree branches are too low!
There are buttons all along the bus to press the bell when you reach your stop. Heavy traffic would make you behind schedule, and the bus will usually only stop at designated bus stops
@lottielou3167 and sometimes then, only at ones where passengers are waiting or if someone has pushed the "stop" button. (The button sounds in the driver cab, and usually lights up the "stopping" sign at the front of the bus
If it is a bus stop, the the driver is obliged to stop at those stops, however if it is a request stop, if you don’t put your arm out, the bus driver is not obliged to stop. Also, if the bus is full and no one presses the bell to stop, then the driver goes past even if people at stop. This applies to London buses. Hubby was a driver for many years and in the bus industry for 40 years.
Very simple rule I used to have, treat your passengers with respect and be polite, then when you get a difficult or aggressive passenger your other passengers will support you
The driver doesn't usually drive the same bus all day. They'll change to another bus at the bus station, replacing the driver who is probably ending his/her shift or maybe switching to drive another route themselves. The driver will pick up rubbish left on the bus during his shift, but the depot does employ cleaners to clean the buses and disinfect them ready for the following day.
You commented on the rubbish in the bus - I must tell you that the first time I visited New York I had to walk through ankle deep trash to get to my seat. I then had to watch the bus driver drinking from something in a brown paper bag as we went down the ramp from the Port Authority building.
At the front on the top deck is a child-like joy that never leaves you! :)
Always an internal "oh, nice!" when you get the chance 😁
I used to love the front seat upstairs.
I can only imagine!
Upstairs driver, great fun for kids.🥳
Just don't sit at the back upstairs if you have a bad back. Some routes have speed bumps on the roads and mu god if your not expecting it you get bounced around
Lindsay, judging by the other rubbish that woman was spouting, I'm not surprised she had "bad experiences"... I felt highly sggrieved at her negative attitude too.
Yeah, she was torn apart in the comments.
Remember that in the UK, as in the rest of Europe, there are no specially designated "yellow" school buses. In rural areas, some bigger schools may hire private buses to ferry pupils from distant villages. On the whole, though, if pupils live too far from school to either walk or cycle, they take a regular bus, or in bigger cities perhaps the underground or a train if their attending specialist schools.
The designated school buses in my neck of the woods (NI) are generally yellow and white and are operated by the EINI and are strictly for schools only. What part of the UK are you from?
In North Somerset, uk, there are school bus routes that either local coach companies or bus companies provide. Depending on age of child and distance from the school, it may be paid for by the education authority or parents have to pay for it.
At school in rural Cambridgeshire in the 1970s, attending a village collage we had four or five independent coach companies to pick up from little villages, paid for by the local education board.
In the local market town in my rural part of England all the school bus services are provided by the local independent bus company, they use about a dozen double decker buses on school services twice a day.
Some of the schools I work at have bus routes using regular service buses that begin or end at the school. They are for schoolkids only though, which is annoying if you're staff and don't have a car. Having said that, I know of one route that takes nearly two hours. No thanks.
In the UK the classes are as follows: A is for motorcycles, B is for cars, vans, B+E is for a cars, vans and trailer. C is for commercial vehicles / heavy goods vehicles over 3.5tonnes, C+E is for Articulated lorries (semi and trailer as you say in the US), D is for a bus or coach D+E is for a bus and trailer. For commercial vehicles (Buses and heavy goods you also need a CPC licence which stands for Certificate of Professional Competence. This needs to be renewed every 5 years. You also need a Tachograph card which you insert into any commercial vehicle tachograph unit in order to log your working and driving hours.
There are restrictions in some of these licence categories for instance, if you pass your driving test in an automatic car, you cannot drive a manual transmission car. Pretty much everyone in the UK passes their test in a manual transmission car but there are some people who choose to take their test in an automatic.
there is also category "H" which is for tracked vehicles like heavy plant and tanks.
@@jeanlongsden1696 and Category Q for for 15 mph mopeds with motorcycles having 5 different categories depending on engine size, power, weight and the age of the rider.
In the 60s the driver was completely separated, only getting in and out from a cab at the front outside of the bus, we had male/female conductors, who took the fares and rung the bell when you got off and on. Happy days😂
One of the bus drivers where I live got an award for being the happiest and friendliest absolute legend. He's very well known around here even to those of us who don't get the bus. Crazy you guys don't have buses where you are...we have so many bus routes there's not many streets without bus stops every 150 feet...A local knitting group has decorated many of the bus stops and post boxes here too with different amazing knitting creations it's very sweet. I noticed this morning a post box with a knitted soldier and poppy on top ready for remembrance day. This town is beginning to get quite scary as most places in the UK are but there are still good people here and things like that are a nice reminder 💞
As an ex bus driver, i found the average passenger a pleasure.
Usullay a "morning/afternoon drive" and a "cheers drive" as they leave.
Routes are timed to the minute, so any minor prang, or even being stuck behind a garbage truck could put you 40 minutes behind the route plan.
It does literally take a month to go from driving a honda civic to driving a double decker 🙈🤣🤣
The older buses will just have "blowers" instead of air con. But the newer veichles do have air con.
Alas sometimes the controls for heat/cold is set by the engineers rather than the driver. Being stuck in a plastic cube on a hot sunny day whilst hot air blows is truly not enjoyabe 🤣
Saying ‘thanks/cheers drive’ is basically mandatory!
@BrewmasterAdaryn one of my favorite parts 😍
Appreciate you sharing your experience! :)
@reactingtomyroots I feel a little starstruck 🤪😍 love your videos guys. Can't wait to see you exploring the UK
Thank you! Hope all is well in Wales with you and yours.
The average wage in the UK is £34,900 - and that average is massively offset by a small number of people who are earning millions. So many people in the UK are earning 29k or less. I doubt any bus driver would be earning 40k, even if he is getting overtime on the top of his basic wage. According to Glassdoor, the average wage with add-ons is £32,500 and that's just in London. Outside of London is £25,500.
Median averages aren’t affected by the outliers
@Millennial_Manc true, but the higher the wage, the less people. People in London for instance do get paid a lot more than someone in a more rural town/small city.
The vast majority of people live outside of London
You can make good money as a freelance coach driver. My brother earns c. £50k driving band sleeper buses
In Brighton (outside London) average bus driver wage is £35K
@@kevins2961Brighton and Hove driver? I'm Stagecoach 😂
We love our London buses, some routes are a sightseeing trip ☺️
The old Routemaster style bus had an entirely separate drivers cabinet with no access to the passengers but those buses also had conductors. Up until the mid to late 80's most buses across the country would have conductors who took the money and gave out the tickets.
They were the best busses hop on and of great , haven’t times changed 😢
Wow only twice? From when I first started catching buses to go to high school till when I stopped about 20 years later, I was catching buses 5-6 days of the week anywhere from 2 to 4 buses at a time to get to school/college/work or days out with friends etc. I never thought about it, but it means I have been on thousands and thousands of bus rides 🤯
It's such a cultural insight to see Steve's perspective. I live in a city and our buses run every 8 to 12 minutes. My 16 year old has taken 20 public buses a week by himself since age 11, and I never even thought until now that an outsider might find that remarkable.
Should look up the sitcom "on the buses" 😂 it's an absolute classic 😊. Should look in to the railways too, if so the Dr Beeching report that destroyed much of our rail network would be interesting to look into. It also created some of the heritage lines so not all bad, plus some are being brought back to life with one called east West rail due to open to passengers next year connecting Oxford and Milton Keynes/Bletchley for 1st time since I think the 1960's
'On the buses' has not aged well at all
@rhianmorris7997 I still watch it and find it very funny 😁
It is over 50 years old now, not really relevant to today.
@andrewwaller5913 still funny though
Thanks Mark! We'll have to add that one to our list :) And yes, we still need to dive into the railway system as well--looking forward to that. Hope you're having a good week.
On double decker buses the stairs tend to be behind the driver, this creates a bulkhead that prevents passengers from either distracting or assaulting the driver from behind, in addition there is a closable door with a screen to protect the the driver. The driver uses interior mirrors/cameras to monitor both decks so there is no need to turn round to check whether passengers are getting on and off at stops.
Many years ago I spent five years driving an urban bus, it is amusing to see they still not have fixed the problem of keeping cool in summer and warm in winter. The problem in summer is in urban environment the expanse of glass coupled with standing in dense traffic heats the air in the cab (try sitting just behind a big window on a sunny day). while having stop every 200 yards to board passengers makes air conditioning pointless. Winter is the same, the only difference is a blast of cold air replaces the hot air.
Yeah, it was a periscope and a mirror they could look up at on older buses but nowadays its just a screen showing CCTV of the upper and lower interior.
To answer 8:02 question, the learner bus is a dedicated bus not used in service and will usually have been retrofitted with dual controls (allowing an instructor or examiner access to brakes). The learner will then progress onto a normal in-service bus after passing all modules of the licensing tests.
The buses used to be of such a design that the driver was completely physically separated from the passenger area with a conductor/conductress taking the fares. Eventually the bus companies or local authorities running the bus services decided they were paying too much in wages, so a redesign of the classic double deckers removed the drivers cab and put him in the body of the bus. So drivers now operate the ticket machines, drive the bus and depending on the driver deal with any difficulties.
In Glasgow we used to have all double deckers with single decker coaches used by services from outside the city, today there are very few double deckers with the vast majority of our bus services being coaches.
Drivers can be rude, they're just human after all and can have bad days like we all can.
Yes buses do have heaters and a/c and in Glasgow anyway, the heaters are only to be used in the summer with the a/c used only in winter ☃️❄️😁
The driver is also behind a plastic screen to protect them from being physically assaulted or spat on.
The two main bus operators in the UK are Arriva and First Bus with a lot of smaller carriers.
There are cameras on the buses and buttons in plenty of places for a passenger to indicate they wish to get off.
Appreciate the info, Vinny! Thanks for watching. :)
There buttons to push when you want the next stop also verbal communication, its just awareness its their job they will know it inside out, some elderly people have to wait until the bus is stationary before attempting to leave so cant be at the door ready to get off when the bus stops.
Driving a double decker for the first time is definitely an exciting and scary moment lol.
They have some amazing engineering points in thier build (like the amount they can lean over).
The driver has a massive mirror looking down the bus on his level, and a screen displaying the camera feed (this is also where the reversing camera shows up when in reverse, if its working lol).
All drivers are enclosed generally. Especially in cities and since covid.
You can pay for tickets by tapping your debit card, or by buy a prepaid card, or a "day travel ticket" which will let you travel on in a specific area or along a route unlimited amounts all day long (its a way to save money if your travelling).
Depending on the company. You could have to learn upto 100 routes, and could be placed on any one of these routes at any point (as routes get changed or a driver will get ill).
I think there were about 8 different bus models being used by the company at the time too, so you have to jump in, sign on, set up your ticket machine, and readjust to the new bus in about 2 minutes.
Its a high pressure job. Your essentially drivining in rush hour traffic all day every day, upto 10hrs a day.
i dont know a sjngle person who "enjoys" commuting 🙈, but the passengers and the views of the city make it worth it imo
You are right about the front seat upstairs. Kids can pretend they are driving the bus and when you grow up we still think that! It's fun and a great view.
Hi. In London public transport falls under the elected Mayor of London as TfL (Transport for London). This includes the road bus stops and shelters, the bus routes and timetables, and the bus fares and ticketing. The various bus routes are bid for by private companies who run the bus garages, employ the bus garage staff and drivers and buy, run and maintain the fleet of buses (in this case at this garage it is Arriva). That is why you have different types of buses run by different companies and possibly the buses he is driving are older models where the heating and cooling for the drivers and passengers may be a bit unreliable. Newer buses have more sophisticated components such as heating, cooling, charging points, hybrid or fully electric, etc. In terms of TfL’s river buses, the same system applies (although because there are fewer routes on the river than on the roads the franchise is normally held by only one company instead of the many on the road bus routes). Currently Thames Clippers runs the river bus franchise (hence the sponsorship of their fleet of river buses by Uber - but to be clear Uber has nothing to do with setting the routes, timetables or fares nor for the ticketing - that, along with the piers, are all TfL). TfL is also responsible for the London Trams in south and south-east London, the Cable Car over the River Thames in east London, the free Woolwich Ferry - for both passengers and traffic - across the River Thames in east London, the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) in east and south-east London, the London Overground railway, the London Underground (Tube) railway, the London Cycle Hire scheme, Victoria Coach Station and the coach stops and shelters within London - although the coaches and drivers, routes and fares / ticketing are the responsibility of the various coach companies - so not the same as for the road buses, the licensing of the taxis/drivers (black cabs) that are based in London, the licensing of the private hire vehicles/drivers (minicabs, Uber etc) based in London, and the ownership and maintenance of the main through roads (Red Routes) in London (the other roads, streets etc are the responsibility of the respective London Borough they are located in - or the City of London if located there). I may have got a bit of the terminology or specific details a bit muddled, but that is the basic concept for London’s public transport. Remember that the City of London is only 1.12 square miles (711 acres) and the remainder of London (the 32 London boroughs) make up the remaining more than 605 square miles of London, so there’s a fair bit of public transport of different sorts around.
Buses vary a lot. When I was first catching buses, "air conditioning" was opening the windows 😅 when it was cold in the winter, some of the buses would turn on the heaters which ran across the floor on the side of the buses. Many years later when I was just starting to stop catching buses, they introduced a fleet of new more modern buses with wifi, charging ports and proper air conditioning. I don't think that the average bus is like that though
@LilMonkeyFella87 definitely becoming like mini offices lol.
But the advent of WiFi and charging ports definitely comes in handy when the drivers on a break. Some have plug points too, for laptop charging.
And we are still talking your low level commuting busses, not even a cross country "coach". Some of them are like first class flying these days lol
There are double decker buses in other countries than England, and I don't just mean Ireland. So I have no idea why everyone thinks its only there
Not only that but people seem to think it's only London that has double decker buses! :D
The United Kingdom is the largest user of double decker buses in public service, other countries do use them but at a much far less rate. Outside of the UK double deckers in Europe are most prominent in Skopje, Berlin and Dublin. Double deckers are also used in Hong Kong, China and in Egypt. They are also used in India and Singapore and there are also very small numbers of them operating in Canada and Mexico.
We have double deck buses in UK because we can't have double decker trains.
Bus drivers access the bus by the same door as the passengers, but he/she has a partially-enclosed cab opposite the passenger door, which obviously is on the near side (left) of the bus.
Until the early 80s it was normal for buses to have a driver and a conductor, known commonly as a 'clippie' because they issued and clipped tickets and they collected the fares. The driver was in a fully-separated cab that was accessed by an off side door. From the 80s onwards all the buses, whether double or single-deckers, became driver-only buses and the off side door disappeared.
The bus companies employ cleaners, many of whom work at night of course.
BTW, if you are fairly tall, the front seats on the top deck don't have much leg room.
Regular buses will only drop off or pick up passengers at official stops. Community' bus services that have some public-funding, and serve more rural areas, will drop you virtually at your door, if it's on the route. They use much smaller vehicles, often 16-seaters, and like the one in my area may use volunteer drivers. We also have a 'flexi-bus' service, using the minibuses, that has substantial funding from local government to serve areas not well-covered by regular services. You can book these online (or by phone) to pick you up at a certain time and place, and drop you at your destination.
There’s lots of channels that have bus driver POVs so if you were interested in seeing more of country or perhaps how bus drivers and passengers interact then you should take a look at those
@Lindsey, with well organised transit you don't really have to wait long. I can't remember since when I had to wait for more than 5 or 10 minutes for a bus, except after the big thunderstorm a couple of years ago when a bunch of trees fell on the streets making circulation impossible for a lot of busses and trams, but even that situation was sorted out in a few days and it's not like you get a major storm like that very often. For the rest of the time, when the networl works well the waiting time is really minimal, and often it gets faster to just ride the transit system than to drive.
It’s less freeing in the US because your are on someone else’s schedule because it’s so infrequent, but in a lot of places the transport is so frequent it’s really not that much of an issue. In London Tube trains are usually every 2 minutes, and buses are incredibly frequent - so barely a change to your schedule
You could watch: ‘How to take a London bus Beginners Guide’ which is a London to Ride production or another one is: ‘New Yorker rides a London bus for the first time’. Both are quite short but still interesting.
I'm a bus driver in Manchester, which I've been doing it for 35 years. Being a bus driver in London is no different from driving a bus anywhere else in the uk. Every city or town all has double Dec busses. All busses are all the same they have a button on the bus you push the button and a bell rings in the drivers cab. I would say all the big bus companies you don't have the same bus or do the same duty everyday. You don't clean the bus off wash it or fuel it up. You can pick rubbish up off the bus if you want or just leave it it's up to you.
Maybe you would enjoy learning about / reacting to the articulated "bendy bus"? London dropped them to replace them with more double deckers but they are in other UK areas.
Terrible buses Londoners hated them thank god they got rid
I used the buses for years. You have to press the button when approaching the stop you want giving the driver time to stop unless someone has already pressed it. The bus drivers have always been friendly and made me laugh a few times, I had a sprained ankle once and limping of the bus one bus driver shouted over to the other bus driver saying... He wasn't limping before he got on that's your driving that's done that! 😂
Best bit there's a bin by the front door nobs
Bus drivers being rude? They're BRITISH, of course they're not rude, its years since ive been on a bus but i cant EVER remember any of the drivers being rude 🇬🇧
I don’t use the bus very often, I do however use the bus when I’m off on a social night with friends in town . I’ve always had a friendly driver and I do always say thank you getting off the bus
I manage a bus company in London. All our buses have air con. If the air con stops working we take the bus out of service until it gets fixed. Same if the heating stops working in the winter.
The Route Masters in my younger days were the best! Jumping on and off when it slowed down at traffic lights, bus conductors with ticket machines. Happy days :-)
Ding ding, room for one more on top, anyone remember that? The buses are one of the things I miss about living in London, you could get a bus anywhere, to the shops or to take the kids for a day out around Trafalgar Square and Green Park or out to the countryside.
That sentence means different today. 😂
Driving buses in London isn't especially difficult.
The traffic is stressful but most of the routes use pretty big roads.
Small town and rural routes are much more challenging driving.
And you have to know a lot more routes.
I was once on a rota with 32 routes I had to learn.
I think Greyhounds are like our long distance inter-city coach services (National Express is one, but there are other services). You would ride on one of these for several hours, with just one or two stops at other cities en route, or a rest stop at a motorway sevice station if the driver has reached their maximim permitted drive time). These coaches require you to wear a seatbelt. They usually have a toilet installed, aircon and lights with individual controls over each seat like on aeroplanes, and the newer ones all have wifi and USB charging sockets. A very different kind of journey experience from local busses. I prefer trains for long journeys (more comfortable, you can move around more, change seat, visit the buffet, and I can read without feeling sick!) but coaches are a lot cheeaper usually.
They only stop at the bus stop if someone wants to get on or off at the stop - you still have to press the bell, or put your arm out if you’re at the stop
We have to press the bell to get off but we don’t have to put our arm out at the stop, here where I am in North Wales. In fact the bus drivers usually acknowledge you by waving at you to ask if you want to get on.
Steve please check out the London to Brighton veteran car run you will love it....
Yesssss
My mum was a bus driver for many years so she is going to answer the questions you have here... Everyone learns on a double decker, this allows for you being able to drive any of the buses be it midi or double decker, midi buses tend to have a longer over hang (Distance between back wheels and the end of the bus) and so you have to take things a little wider when turning with them. you work shifts, the guy saying he only works 7/8 hours but gets paid for 11 etc is because he is on what they call "Spread overs" it means you have a long break between your shift due to cap on hours allowed to drive, all bus companies are now private, Ariva is just one of them, my mum worked for Stagecoach, you learn all the routes not just one as you can do several different routes in a month, the drivers cabin area is enclosed with a door, bus checks inside to be done at every stand point and you always check over your bus on the outside before you drive. There are buttons to signal stop at next bus stop for people to get off but there are also mandatory stops that the drivers all have to stop at, (White bus stops are compulsory stops, red ones are request) the driver has a big mirror and cameras to see into that shows the upstairs area, the stairs and the back doors that allows them to see people getting on and off. The driver was 40 mins behind schedule due to delays in traffic, on his time sheet he is meant to be at every major stop point at a certain time, if you are too early, you get booked by any inspectors that may be there, if you are late and it becomes a significant amount of time, you get curtailed, they change your end destination to a nearer stop and you turn there to go back the other way, time keeping is essential as a bus driver, this is to make sure that there is a fluid service and you don't get buses all turning up at the same time, that way passengers get spread out and buses don't get over full and it keeps a regular service.
When you say everyone learns on a double decker is that the entire country? Like would a bus driver in Milton Keynes do their training in a double decker
@@minovictor I maybe should have considered other parts of the country, I only know about London or at least the garage I worked from so can't answer that question, I would assume if they don't have double deckers in that specific area then no. I actually took my test in a coach though I learnt to drive a bus in a double decker.
I lived in London from birth until I was 29 so I used buses a lot. I never had a bus driver be rude to me but I haven’t experienced them being very friendly but I don’t blame them really , people aren’t really friendly to them and often act like they are invisible , particularly now the payments are often contactless. Getting the front seat upstairs never gets boring 😅
only when i was a kid i'd experienced an angry bus driver moment when some anti-social kids from school caused trouble, one thing led to another the driver decided to take his anger on all the passengers and whizz past all the bus stops we needed to get off
When it comes to getting on and off the bus, getting on the bus, you’d usually stick your arm out at the bus stop to hail the bus if it’s a stop that serves more than one service and tap a pass or pay the driver (outside of London). Getting off, there’s a bell you press to indicate that you want to get off at the next stop (more now have information boards to say which is the next stop so that if you’re not local to the area, you know where to get off etc).
I live in the South West of England. As a Pensioner, we have free bus passes, which are valid on public transport anywhere in the UK. If you travel the main routes (town to town) the timetables are usually every 10-15 min peak times and around 20-30 min off peak. So you can plan when to leave home and catch your bus. Our drivers are very friendly and helpful, if you are not sure where you are going, which stop you need, mention it to the driver, and they will call out to you when you get there. Otherwise, you push a button and a screen near the drivers cab lights up to alert the driver to stop at the next stop. I got rid of my car years ago.
Can't use your pass in Scotland.
@@petersmithm9 Interesting, so as a born and bred Scot (Springburn, Glasgow.} there is no alternative?
@@petersmithm9 Each of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland has its own free bus pass for pensioners and disabled people, but they aren't interchangeable. So Scottish pensioners get a pass that they can only use in Scotland, English pensioners get a pass they can only use in England, etc.
@@stevieinselby I know, that's why I replied the way I did. Mine is for England.
@@marniemccartney2941 You can only use yours in Scotland.
Loved to travel the old Routemaster double deckers as a kid with my nana, upstairs, up front right hand side, and look down the wee periscope at the driver as he drove.
And years later as a teen, jumping on and off the back of a moving double decker.
Buses get backed up through traffic and other buses overtake the full bus in front, so u get 3 buses at once at rush hour, so they start somewhere else, there are heaters and windows for passengers, we have double deckers and low long buses, bus stops are about 5-10min between bus stops (well devon where I live). The plastic was put up through covid but some are for safety of people trying to rob the driver or try and attack driver, I've used more buses then I've been in a car lol
Love the top and especially the front. You get to see all the gardens and countryside views you can’t see in a car.
Bus services will vary across the country. In some more remote places a route may only run once per week, as opposed to once every 10 minutes in central London.
The modern Routemaster buses are *not* air conditioned and are absolutely horrible to be on the upper deck on a hot day. Their windows don't open either.
Short guide to getting on a bus:
1) Find the route number and direction you need. E.g. the number 12 to Dulwich library.
2) Find your nearest stop along the route and be on the correct side of the road.
3) When the bus comes, signal clearly that you want this bus (as stops will be shared by many different routes) like you were hailing a taxi.
4) Pay via contactless card.
5) To get off, press the button to ding the bell and be by the door when it stops.
It was true that the new Routemaster didn't have opening windows, but they have been retro-fitted to some, if not all, buses.
My mates and I would go bus riding when we were kids, buy an all day pass for about 1.50 then ride around Cardiff all day on the old orange double decker buses 😂
Generally speaking in Europe there are areas where not having a car can limite your ability to travel, but even in this areas you don't rely on the car alone, as the car and public transportation in the worst case supplement each other.
@alicetwain got to love a "park n ride". Big car park, next to the train station or it will have its own bus stop and route.... for major shopping areas or for city centre trips.
@@c0wbag49 I actually don't since I don't drive at all. Besides, the local station is ten minutes from my apartment and the main stations in Milan are all served by one or two subway lines.
Great reaction again Steve and Lindsey. I am 56 years old and seen the changes in buses since travelling to school on a bus as a kid. Most of today's buses are square and hybrids. (electric and diesel). When I was a kid, red Double Decker's were rounded shape diesel buses and quite smelly from the smoke from the diesel and engine oil. No doors on the old buses, just an open gantry on the back to hop on and off the bus. No health and safety in those days either. Instead of buttons like on the buses today to press and ring the bell to stop the bus at the stop. Those days, there were pull line cords on the ceiling going along the whole end of the bus on the upper and lower levels. Just tug on the line to ring the bell and stop the bus. Lastly, there were two operators on the Double Decker's back in the day. One was the driver and the other was the bus conductor who walked up and down the bus with their little mechanical ticket machine collecting fares. 20 pence for a ride in those days, now it is £1.75. 🙂
Peace love from England ❤
On the iconic London Routemaster bus which were built between 1959 and 1968 the bus driver literally has the cab to him/herself. The Routemaster bus also has a conductor to help issue tickets and to give advice to passengers with regard to journey information as well as calling out the stops along the way.
His bus check was dubious at best. He didn't check the operator and MOT discs were in date, he didn't check the operator's address and registration plates were visible, he didn't check the fire extinguisher, the windscreen washer and wipers, the horn, the wheel nut indicators, interior and exterior lights, the wheelchair ramp, destination board, emergency glass-breakers, driver seat and window adjustment, footbrake, handbrake and steering functionality, the stop bus bells or the hand rails. Or maybe he did but just didn't record it.
MOT discs, do they still have them? i thought they stopped them quite a few years ago, regardless given the way the content was made I doubt he would have videoed everything single thing involved, maybe we could cut him some slack in that regard rather than pointing out things that were not shown in depth.
Personally I think he did a good job in covering the basics of the day, kudos to the guy.
@@Danielsonoftheshires MOT discs in windscreens are no longer required by law but drivers are responsible to make sure the bus has a valid MOT so the company I worked for did put a disc in the window displaying the last MOT date. There is a strict checklist to go through before a bus goes into service and you'd be surprised how many drivers complete 'checks' without even leaving the driver's seat. That's the point I was trying to make.
@@dominicjohn8954 When I was a driver I never had to check the bus had a valid MoT certificate. That was dealt with by the engineering department and we had no daily access to the maintenance records anyway. All we had to check was that the tax disc and operators licence were present and in date plus the other standard checks.
My brother is a bus driver in Exeter, Devon. In Winter he freezes, in Summer he cooks. His bus is large - it was a double decker last time I asked. His wage is not impressive for the hours AND the responsibility involved. His main shift starts at 4AM, when he takes the company car and picks up 3 other drivers, to get them to the depot. That means he has to get to the depot, leave his motorbike there, get the car and go around the city to fetch others. Then after checking the bus has been cleaned and refuelled, etc, his shift with the public begins at 4.45am. He works for a straight 5 hours before he can take a break. His route does include picking kids up from areas not served by a dedicated school bus, but isn't generally for that purpose. He finally gets home around 14 hours after leaving. (the drive into Exeter takes him about 40 minutes each way)
At the moment, 29,000 British Pounds Sterling is $37,000 here in the US
What I'm wondering is if that's before or after taxes.
Transport for London (TfL) operates the largest bus network in the world with a fleet of 8000 buses. TfL also operates the Tube (Underground), Overground trains, Trams, Docklands Light Rail (DLR), bicycle hire scheme, a ferry service etc. As a Londoner it’s so easy to get around the City.
There are sucurity cameras on the busses now
9:47 to 9:48 we do have AC in the buses.
There’s a button to ring a bell and he has cameras
Another thing that will shock Americans.😀😃😄
You can get a mix of double decker and single decker training buses across the country. Most training buses are older buses that retired from normal passenger work
My mam was a 'ducky' back in the 50's and 60's, means she was a conductress who took the money from the passengers and gave them a ticket, the driver was in a seperate compartment back then. My mate was a driver 20 years ago driving double deckers past my house, one day he took bad (loo) and had to go really bad, he pulled up with a bus full of people, ran up to my door, came straight in and beelined it to the loo, the look on the passengers was priceless. We used to leg it upstairs to try and get the front seats as well.
10:44
To answer a few of your questions.
1) Drivers at Arriva are trained on one route, and the allocated buses to that route. Drivers can learn other routes to do overtime, but this is not compulsory. One thing that is important to note, you cannot drive a route that uses buses you are not type trained for.
2) Arriva is a private company that is self sufficient from profits.
3) The London bus model works by private bus companies bidding to run routes, TFL will assign contracts to run bus routes for a set period of time, and will specify the allocation of bus (e.g. single or double deck, diesel, hydrid or electric etc).
4) The drivers cab is protected with an assult screen on the cab door. Drivers have been assaulted badly in the past, so Transport for London specified drivers assult screens to be fitted.
5) Drivers buses change each day, cleaners work at bus garages to clean buses once they have done their day's work. Buses are allocated based on the routes they operate. For example, DW565 can do route 121 on the Monday, and then DW565 can be on route 349 the next day.
6) Drivers have a mirror in the cab that provides a view for the rear doors that drivers use.
I’ve never met a rude bus driver in England ever!
Guessing you've never been to London?
No me neither,however I've never been to London,I always thank the driver too❤
I had one grab my hand once to inspect my weekly ticket. Unwarranted, I'd shown it for several seconds before he decided to grab my hand. But on the whole it's definitely unusual to have a rude bus driver.
To put salaries into perspective. The median salary for the entirety of the UK is £34,963 so bus drivers could be considered underpaid even outside of London standards. The median salary for London is significantly higher at £44,370. However to be considered a comfortable lifestyle you would need to be earning in the £50-60,000 region as a single person, significantly more for a family income.
Most people thank the driver when they get off, it's sort of a tradition. Historically, bus drivers were an awkward lot and some conductors, too. They were known for driving off quick if they saw you hurrying to catch the bus. That was the perception anyway and some bus crews have admitted to doing it.
I don't know where you heard that, but it is untrue. If you are late they will not wait for you, as they have a schedule and must think of the other passengers who board the bus on time. If you miss the bus it is YOUR problem, not theirs. Face it, it is not in their best interest to be mean or rude, so why would they do it?
@@sharonmartin4036 From a bus conductors own account of what they got up to.
@@sharonmartin4036 search for this online (chronicles-of-a-1960s-bus-conductor) my local bus company in the 1960's. Probably very different now I accept, I was talking about the past. No bus conductors these days and drivers have to deal with the public.
I've probably taken more buses than Steve in a single day before. I pay £66 a month for unlimited bus and tram riding in Edinburgh. Our boy Baz gets all buses and coaches free in Scotland until he's 22.
When I was a kid In the 60's we had a new bus driver who didn't know the route to take us to school. I lived in a county area with small county lanes ,we told the driver it was a short cut if he went this way. The poor man believed us. The road was so narrow he got the bus stuck on several occasions, it was the best journey to school we kids ever had. 😂
You should look up the shortest train line / journey in England!
We do have specific buses that are only used for training here.
For example my local bus depot is also a training depot, and the buses have different paintwork and are usually older buses, both single and double deckers, recently withdrawn from public use due to age, usually from between 2005 and 2010.
Their interiors are also modified so that learner drivers can easily be observed by instructors, by removing the panel between the cab and passenger area and installing an instructor’s seat next to the cab. There are also usually table seats installed midway down the bus so that assessors can easily take notes during a journey (and can also be used as a mobile classroom).
Usually these buses also have additional training mirrors to help drivers learn about positioning, blind spots etc.
Hope this helps 🙂
Hi, Just to answer some of your questions as a citizen of Yorkshire in the UK, And the manager of the Barnsley Stagecoach Bus Depot and Operations, London is built on 3 different bus operators which are branded under one, so the 3 Main ones are Stagecoach, Arriva and First Bus, they are all however branded under TFL (Transport for London). It goes the same for here in Yorkshire, here in South Yorkshire we have Stagecoach, Arriva and First Bus, which however are they're own brands which have their own bus tickets, and our branded for themselves, but they get funded by TSY (Travel For South Yorkshire), and it goes quite similar for everywhere else. To answer your question on the Training Bus and whether that can be used as a normal public bus, the answer is simply no, these busses are adapted for the Driver Mentor to also have control of the the basic vehicle controls like pedals and brakes and the parking break, the seats are made of wood, typically just covered by fabric just for the looks, and aren't meant for real life use. Our Busses do not have air conditioning unless the bus is a Yutong E10/E12, these are the new electric busses which do have air con, but a standard ADL Enviro 200/300/400 -- EV or not, they will not have air con for the passengers. The Driver may have a fan installed. Transport for London (TfL) fund Arriva/Stagecoach in London, but also may be funded by the public. Leaving trash on busses only happens really within London, and they are mostly clean outside of London. Typically within busses in London, the head route display control has a camera (cctv) module within it so you can view the cameras that way while also change the running board (The Display at the front, side and back of the bus showing the route number and name) But, on busses outside of London, there would be a small display with the cameras cycling between the different ones (subject to Double Deck or Single Deck, on single decker's the bus only has a door next to the cab so they can see people getting off that way and or there is a passenger mirror so the driver can see as well. Just to correct you on this, They don't stop at every stop, they will only stop if there is a person at a bus stop who has put their hand out (especially will only stop if you put your hand out if that bus stop serves multiple bus routes!) He was 40 Minutes behind schedule due to a diversion on the bus route he had not knows about.
My father drove busses for 20 yrs before he passed. Some days when i was younger i would sit on his bus and ride with him on his route ❤️❤️❤️
Inter-city coaches which are advanced ticket, have the driver in the same space as the passengers. In local buses, the driver is handling money (less so these days), so the shield is for security.
8:20 All of the Training Buses used to be in Passenger service at one point in their lives. In fact, I've been on that particular Bus before!
It depends on the Garage the Buses run out of, as some would use both single and double Decker Buses to Train the Drivers. Depending on the route and depending on what Garage it is.
There's a bell push button on the majority of the handrails and that will notify the Driver that someone want's to get off at the next stop. There's a Camera (CCTV Screen) in the Drivers Cab, to see when the Passengers leave the Bus through the rear doors above the Driver's head.
12:07 the panel behind is where the eletrical system is stored
Funny enough That is the main local bus garage to me known as "Ponders End Bus Garage" Southbury road, Enfield. it is about 2 Miles from me 😊
From the age of 6 I went to school by bus (public, not a school bus, 30 minutes each way). There are "bus stops" of two types in London - one where the bus always stops, and "request stops" where it only stops if someone on the bus rings the bell, or someone at the stop puts their hand out. Distances between stops vary from a couple of hundred yards to half a mile or more (in the countryside). The bus stop is either a pole with a sign at the top, or a shelter with the sign on that.
Most bus drivers do drive from bus stop to bus stop, but in some areas they also have a hail and ride service which allows you to flag down a bus anywhere on its route and then stop the bus and also stop the bus at a place of your choosing without a bus stop.
This very convenient and if you time it right you can get off right outside of the place you going to
I drove buses for 37 years around Newcastle upon Tyne NE England o various routes.
Passengers ring the bell to tell the driver they want off at the next bus stop and the driver has mirrors to check on them getting off.
The air he was talking about was the air pressure for brakes and door operation, making sure the air pressure was at correct level.
I retired in 2008.
The vertical rails have a button which rings for a stop. Some of the bus stops will have an arrivals display stating the time until the next bus on the routes at that stop. Your Greyhound buses are what we would call coaches and go longer distances between cities and generally have a rest room.
Arriva started out in life as a chain of car dealerships in Northern England called "T Cowie", then created Arriva when they branched out into public transport when it was privatised, doing both bus and rail services.
It is now owned by Deutch Bahn (DB), the national rail operator of Germany.
I drive for arriva in my home town, we have about 20 routes to learn and drive frequently each week, London is different, you have one or two routes. It’s a great job, I agree with him about every day being different and the passengers get to know you. It is a very stressful job but worth it 😊
Guys, right there you said it on the buses you need to watch the 70s comedy show that was called on the buses👌👍
Londoners make more money because its sooo expensive.. London is *busy so I can understand a bit of "grumpy". Other parts of England are OK, friendly and funny. There are cams on all buses, both inside and out.. We all say "Thank you" as we get off and pass the driver!! Thank you guys.
Front seat at the top of the bus is the best!
As a kid I always loved being on the top deck on the front seat. Event better when the bus drivers through like narrow country roads and the top deck is whacking into all the tree branches :D
Thank-you another great vlog ☺️hope your lifestyle changes are going well 👏hi from the Uk 🇬🇧