Over 60 years old now, a bus enthusiast since the age of 13, and a bus driver for over 37 years. On here you'll find mainly bus and train videos, but I do sometimes make the effort to video other things as well. I do try to reply to all comments as well.
Nice video Peter👌. Just as requested👍😁. A little confusing that the week start on saturday. How do you apply for a spesific rota at your garage Peter? At my depot (in Norway) we apply once a year and start at school term in august. We use senority to deside which rota you get, meaning the driver beeing longest with the company choose rota first, and so on.
In the old days of London Transport the working week always started on a Saturday, I guess this helped with holidays as back then most package holidays or holiday camps etc you booked a week starting on a Saturday. When you join a garage you get given a rota with a space on it, and you will stay on that rota forever. If you want to change to a different route/rota you put a memo in and wait for a slot to become available.
@@BristolRE. Thank you for answering my questions. Interesting to compare Norway vs UK bus driver working conditions. Looking forward to you next video👍😃
I do not know to be honest this was back in 2002 when I worked forvFirst capital in rainham Essex which sadly got taken over as most other operators by stagecoach.
A continuation of the same duty, so top line 108 through to the end of the week, drop down for the weekend duties, finish 108 on the Monday then two days off
@@mohibj Four day week works well, I was on a four day week rota in Ipswich, 4 x 10 hour shifts, work a rest day and still have 2 days off. What would be better is four on four off, but you'd need the same amount of weekend shifts as you do weekday shifts for that to work
Rest L simply means the duties following that Rest will be lates, this is a late rota so kind of pointless, but it's standard. On a rota where all duties are mixed it will say Rest E, Rest M or Rest L for earlies, middles or lates
I started working lates with First capital I was split between two routes 362 and 462. I always looked forward to the four days long weekend when it came to Wednesday night and terminated I was yes long weekend yay. Foot to floor back to depot to enjoy a well deserved break.
Good info Peter, in my day there were no early rotas or late rotas, you were early one week late the next with some spread overs thrown in for good measure...
Great Video Peter, very interesting to see how an aspect of running a bus service works. Only thing I didn't understand was what are the Blank Spaces for? - Do you move down a Row when hitting one or as I gleaned from your Video only when the end of the Week (Friday) happens? If the latter what happens during the Blanks?
I should have been clearer, the blank spaces are a continuation of whatever weekday duty you were on, so top line, 108 duty on the Tuesday, you do that Weds Thurs Fri as well, then drop down
Some drivers choose to stay on a spare rota, so they get to drive all routes for variety, you know when your days off are, but the actually shifts can change right up until 24 hours beforehand as you are covering sickness and holidays
@@tgm9991 Not really, you get messed about on the spares. You could have a dead late one day and a late/middle the next, so long as there are 10 hours off in between then it's legal. Plus, from my point of view there are lots of routes that stress, so I like the safety of the same route, and consistent start / finish times. It suits some, but not all.
@@BristolRE 121 and 307 stick to main roads, 377 is a hail-and-ride minibus in the back roads of suburban semis, where the biggest issue is mummies duking it out for parking spaces to pick up Jemima at 1530.
@@JelMain You talking route 307? Yeah, it's a crap schedule, no running time and no stand time, needs an extra bus (or two) being added, but TfL won't pay for it, so we're stuck with it.
