How Many Drivers Does a Bus Have In It's Life?

[Swift]

I often think how many individual drivers the former NSW government buses had in 20+ years service.
In the olden days IE before contracted services, many buses would have had less then a hand of fingers with their first few years with their first operator.

Can anyone do a rough calculation of how many driver's bums got in each saddle on various buses and coaches?

[Campbelltown busboy]

I often think how many individual drivers the former NSW government buses had in 20+ years service.
In the olden days IE before contracted services, many buses would have had less then a hand of fingers with their first few years with their first operator.

Can anyone do a rough calculation of how many driver's bums got in each saddle on various buses and coaches?

There was a time in the past when drivers could have their permanent bus no matter what shift that driver had

[Merc1107]

Would depend a lot on operational practices - some (maybe many?) privates ran to the "one bus, one driver" system. Some operations might have driver relief points, very peaky work (i.e. broken shifts), which would all impact the total number of bums that occupied the driver's seat over the buses' life.

Assuming a bus is out on weekdays-only in the peaks, and is serviceable 48 weeks of the year (to account for servicing, breakdowns, days it doesn't go out), then runs 25 years, it would be driven a total of 12000 times: 5 * 2 * 48 * 25 = 12000. Although some staff may drive the bus multiple times, so if you considered the number of individuals who took the bus out, that figure would decrease substantially.

[Swift]

In the good old days of one driver one bus there have been instances I've witnessed either a bus I'm used to seeing with a particular driver being driven by a different face or a regular driver in a rare case of driving different bus to his usual.
Both sights would strike me immediately! Great memories.

[eddy]

On school buses it always was the same bus but on service runs it would be a different route and bus every day if you were a casual going from the biggest newest to the oldest smallest regardless what route you were on.

I found it very hard to remember all the routes because I only got the same one once a month but others worked harder on remembering them but that was Premier Wollongong who had a lot more drivers in case there was a rail fail.

Actually it was just a way of transferring railfail cost to the Fed because one driver said he just made suficient to prevent top up from them.

[Frances]

I remember one of regular bus drivers I encountered years ago (I think I'm going back to my school days here) who would tell his passengers that he had his own bus, unlike other drivers in the company (it was Baxter's Bus Lines). The bus had a manual gearbox and, unlike other buses in the fleet, didn't have power steering, so none of the other drivers wanted to touch it......

[Fleet Lists]

But then Baxters was very much a "one bus one driver" operation.
I can remember the day a Baxters bus was involved in an accident and a big thing was made of the fact that the driver concerned did not usually drive that bus.

[Frances]

Mostly one bus one driver, but not all the time, I think. This particular driver seemed proud of the fact that no-one else EVER drove his bus.

Baxter's had some sort of thing about collecting numberplates with low numbers for their buses too, I think.

[Magnetic]

On school buses it always was the same bus but on service runs it would be a different route and bus every day if you were a casual going from the biggest newest to the oldest smallest regardless what route you were on.

I found it very hard to remember all the routes because I only got the same one once a month but others worked harder on remembering them but that was Premier Wollongong who had a lot more drivers in case there was a rail fail.

Actually it was just a way of transferring railfail cost to the Fed because one driver said he just made suficient to prevent top up from them.

I can imagine how hard it would be to remember some of those random school routes. I like how on Newcastle Transport website you can look up any route they do including the school ones. I’ve looked up a few random ones that do some crazy stuff. Double back on themselves and drive the same road in in same direction while still on the same run. Then there’s gotta be like more than 180 school routes ran by the two Newcastle Transport depots. Thags a lot to remember unless you get the same one all the time.

[captainch]

When I was attached to RYDE DEPOT they trialed drivers having their own bus on selected shifts my first bus was merc 1995 had for many years untill it was sent to help out in BRISBANE GAS BUSES FAILURE. & latter went to east timor as a bus because the roads were to narrow they were used as homes.Then I RECEIVED GAS BUS 2000 FOR THE OLYMPICS did a lot of promotion trips I DROVE IT EVERY SO OFTEN IN THE OLYMPIC VILLAGE WHEN i WAS IN CHARGE STILL HAVE ITS NUMBER PLATES WHEN athleates stole all the bus number plates when the plates were made a 2nd set was made one for our boss I was given the other MY LAST BUS WAS EX Northern & Western mec 3533 untill I transfered to newcastle when we trialed the battery buses from N Z they had their own drivers also when we had the 2 renults they were driven by 4 senior drivers our boss said by giving drivers their own bus they were looked after my 3533 went on 3 charters to hunter valley & a 3 day trip to country music festival tamworth & was used twice as a wedding bus!/