Public Transit Bus Driver Question

[KLPath]

Hey,

I have a question regarding a public transit bus driver's work schedule and I'm not having much success finding the answer on google.
In most, if not all cities, the number of buses per hour varies depending on the time of day. Anyways, my question is, after rush
hour is over and the number of needed buses decreases, where do these extra bus drivers go and what do they do? I thought maybe
driving for public transit was a part-time gig but I did manage to find an article that states the drivers in my city work 40-hour work weeks.

Sorry in advance if my question is considered ridiculous.

[Blueobelisk]

Different routes.

[KLPath]

Different routes.

I'm not sure I understand this, once rush hour is over, wouldn't ALL routes need less drivers?

[Sunseeker]

I'm not sure I understand this, once rush hour is over, wouldn't ALL routes need less drivers?

Most likely they have overlapping shifts.

[Blueobelisk]

I'm not sure I understand this, once rush hour is over, wouldn't ALL routes need less drivers?

Maybe they only offer some routes during non-rush hour times.

[IRunSoFarAway]

40 hours a week is still 8 hours a day. It's most likely 2 full time drivers working in shifts, and 1 part time driver per bus per day, or something like that, depending on how early/late they operate.

[KLPath]

Most likely they have overlapping shifts.

I have no idea what you mean by this, care to explain?

Maybe they only offer some routes during non-rush hour times.

So less routes available after rush hour? Doesn't that create an even bigger excess of drivers? lol

- - - Updated - - -

40 hours a week is still 8 hours a day. It's most likely 2 full time drivers working in shifts, and 1 part time driver per bus per day, or something like that, depending on how early/late they operate.

Ok so we have 2 drivers, let's call them driver A and driver B. During rush hour, both drivers are driving. After the morning rush hour,
are you saying, driver A drives for an hour and then driver B takes over and they do this until the evening rush hour? If that's what you mean,
what was driver B doing when driver A was doing his route? lol

EDIT - Anyways, I have to go to bed so I'll have to figure this out tomorrow. G'night.

[IRunSoFarAway]

Ok so we have 2 drivers, let's call them driver A and driver B. During rush hour, both drivers are driving. After the morning rush hour,
are you saying, driver A drives for an hour and then driver B takes over and they do this until the evening rush hour? If that's what you mean,
what was driver B doing when driver A was doing his route? lol

EDIT - Anyways, I have to go to bed so I'll have to figure this out tomorrow. G'night.

It depends on the route and the frequency of buses. If there are only two buses going the whole day, one starts at A and goes to B, the other starts at B and goes to A, and you'll have 2 drivers in the morning til the early afternoon, then 2 different ones from the early afternoon til the evening.

Then there are ones that come every 20 minutes instead of every hour, so you'll obviously have more drivers going back and forth, I assume they hire part time drivers if they need more to compensate. From what I've noticed here, they just have 10-15 minute breaks at the last stop of whatever way they're going, or they switch drivers, the other one just gets in the company car, goes to the bus facility, and goes home.

That's all I've noticed from using the public transport here when I was in school. I don't know, I'm not sure what's so interesting about it. Seems like you could just ask the bus driver, or call/email the bus facility and ask, you'd probably get a better answer from people that actually are involved with the job.

[Twoddle]

Preamble
As an ex bus driver I can tell you that it's one of the worst jobs in the world if you want to have an outside life. Say goodbye to keeping up with the news, socializing and having a regular sleeping pattern. You don't see many happy bus drivers these days the job has gone downhill a lot.

The way it works is that every full-time driver employed at a bus garage will have a different 5 day 'duty' each week which means working any five days out of the seven in the week. You can do overtime on either or both of the 2 rest days but you can't work 14 days in a row by law, you must have at least one day off per fortnight.

There are hundreds of different duties involving different routes and hours from about 6½ to over 12 per day, starting anywhere from 4am to 6pm. A driver knows in advance which duty s/he will be doing and you can swap future duties with another driver if you so desire to try and smooth out your sleeping rhythms.

The Answer to your Question
To answer your question, a bus scheduled to run between certain hours from point A to point B and back all day will covered by multiple duties. In the morning a driver will have a duty to check that bus and take it out on the road. When that driver's break time arrives another driver on a different duty will be waiting at a bus stop to take over the bus. When that driver's break time or end of shift arrives another driver will be waiting somewhere along the route to take over etc.

When the bus has finished its time on the road the driver will be scheduled to bring it back to the garage after the last stop of it's last journey. That doesn't necessary mean the driver's day is over, s/he might be scheduled to take another bus out after a break.

To ensure that there is always a driver for a bus there will be many relief drivers sitting in the garage doing nothing except waiting for further instructions (paid of course), in case a driver on the road goes sick.

I hope that answers your question. Feel free to ask more.

[zwoopaman]

I know in Belgium some of the shifts are split up, meaning for example: work for 4 hours, go home for 4 hours and then come back to work for another 4.

[Twoddle]

Those are called 'spreadovers' over here, over 12 hours long with a 4 hour+ break. You get good overtime pay doing those but you have no life.

[Itakas]

I have no idea what you mean by this, care to explain?

[KLPath]

The problem with this is the buses where I live start operating around 5:00am and rush hour ends around 10:00am, that's only a 5 hour shift.
In addition, according to the bus schedule, the first hour of operation in the morning isn't considered rush hour so there are less buses operating.

I know in Belgium some of the shifts are split up, meaning for example: work for 4 hours, go home for 4 hours and then come back to work for another 4.

See now this makes sense to me but it would be so time consuming/expensive especially if you live far away from the location where your first shift
ends and your second shift begins.

To answer your question, a bus scheduled to run between certain hours from point A to point B and back all day will covered by multiple duties. In the morning a driver will have a duty to check that bus and take it out on the road. When that driver's break time arrives another driver on a different duty will be waiting at a bus stop to take over the bus. When that driver's break time or end of shift arrives another driver will be waiting somewhere along the route to take over etc.

When the bus has finished its time on the road the driver will be scheduled to bring it back to the garage after the last stop of it's last journey. That doesn't necessary mean the driver's day is over, s/he might be scheduled to take another bus out after a break.

To ensure that there is always a driver for a bus there will be many relief drivers sitting in the garage doing nothing except waiting for further instructions (paid of course), in case a driver on the road goes sick.

So the bus drivers breaks are scheduled in such a way to prevent too many drivers from being on the road after rush hour but the specifics
of these break schedules are what I'm curious about. :P

[Twoddle]

Slight oversimplification there unfortunately I know of no bus company that only runs 2 buses . The system as a whole is worked out on computer with complicated linear programming algorithms and has to to take into account all the routes and timetables and there are hundreds.

See now this makes sense to me but it would be so time consuming/expensive especially if you live far away from the location where your first shift ends and your second shift begins.

That's the pain of doing spreadovers, you have to find somewhere to go and something to do during those 4 hours but you are being paid for that 4 hour break plus an overtime rate for your second half. You can earn a lot of money, it's not a stressful job it's money for time.