Bus driver hours

[telstarbox]

I'm currently looking at a simple bus service and wondered how an operator might organise the drivers in compliance with the regulations for bus drivers' hours.

It is a circular service which runs with one vehicle from 0700 to 1930, running at a 30-minute frequency during the day but a 20-minute frequency during the morning and evening rush hour.

From gov.uk, the rules are:
- Drivers cannot drive for more than 10 hours in one day
- After 5.5 hours of driving, there must be a break of at least 30 minutes
- Or within 8.5 hours there must be at least 45 minutes break, and a 30 minutes break after the 8.5 hours if there is further driving

Assuming this service cannot be inter-worked with other bus routes, would an operator break the shift into 5.5 hour blocks, e.g.
Driver 1 0700 to 1230
Driver 2 1230 to 1800
Driver 1 1800 to 1900

or would another driver just relieve the main driver during their break period, or would other systems be used?

 

[ECML180]

Totally depends on the operator and how it's historically been done. Less and less people offer drivers a full 5.5 hour block any longer, in many cases by the driver being relieved at 3ish hours he can have 10 extra minutes to pee, eat a snack, read the paper, etc before being refreshed and taking another service out.

Companies tend to operate on a scale of 'one man one bus' operation to 'fully flexible operation' at the OMOB end, a bloke would drive for 2 hours before a 30 minute break, 3 hours then a lunch break (30-60 minutes for that frequency) and then drive for probably 3 hours again. While he's on lunch someone else would come in with a different vehicle and do the run, this allows the other bloke to drive off to a nearby pub/layby keeping the terminus clear of changeover vehicles. In the middle is the case of someone doing a similar pattern but taking his breaks at a hub, where he may then move on to working a different service, but the same driver tends to run the same route, even if not at the same time every day.

The other end of the scale is a fully flexible operation where a bus tends to stay on a route all day(albeit maybe changing in the peak) with different drivers who are not regulars on any route.

Usually smaller operators run at the OMOB end of the scale and so you'd see one driver do the earlies and cover for the usual driver's morning and lunch break. Larger operators often have smoother systems where drivers get longer periods of driving before being relieved.

Hope this helps!
(NB the timings are just how I'd run it!)

 

[Alistair G.]

Dividing up rosters can be tricky, is this your first service u r providing?, what level of staffing do you have to play with?. I used to work for somewhere that ran a park and ride operation, except in the morning one driver would do school runs and then finish with P&R, whilst the other driver started on P&R, would do the afternoon schools and have one final P&R run before finish (simply as it was back on way towards the garage!). With the obvious breaks in between it could run on 2 drivers

 

[telstarbox]

I'm preparing the specification for the service but it will be provided by a third party operator, so not sure what the level of staffing will be yet!

 

[ECML180]

If you're contracting it to someone else, unless you want regular drivers or you want to specify when there are driver/vehicle changeovers (eg to allow extra time due to traffic) I'd leave it to the operator. It would probably be cheaper that way.

 

[SWTH]

You need to also factor in driving time from the depot to the start of the route and vice versa. There are two ways of doing the job:

Example A:
Driver 1: Book on 0630, 15 min for sign on/walk round check, 15 mins to get to start point. Then does 0700-1000.
Driver 2: Book on at a time that would enable them to get to the changeover point for 1000 (strictly speaking 10 mins before to account for traffic etc). Then drive 1000-1300.
D1: 1300-1600, then RTB.
D2: 1600-1900, then RTB with bus.

Example 2:
D1: does 0630-1130
D2: 1130-1430 (assuming one is available on a long break around those times)
D1: 1430-1930.

With a bit more info I can refine these, is the depot the bus will be operating from on a bus route that would enable a second driver to travel passenger to the start of the route? How far from the depot is the start point of the route? Remember driving time includes dead mileage. Thirdly, is there anywhere for a driver to have a break (toilet facilities, somewhere indoors to eat lunch etc?).

 

[ECML180]

Also, remember that a sometimes when interworked you can have spare drivers coming off schools/peak/relief duties and so a long period may be made up of a different driver on each departure.

One important question: are you intending to use a vehicle in a specified livery? For example: http://flic.kr/p/a3ou8s

Obviously if it has to be a certain bus that changes things, if it can be in a standard livery that makes the scheduling easier.

 

[CatfordCat]

As others have said, it's fairly rare for one operator's entire output to consist of one bus, one service.

With larger operations each driver will generally have 2 spells of duty during their shift, and in most cases, each bus will be handed from one driver to another several times during the day. The exception might be 'spread over' duties where the bus and driver will be on duty (say) 0700 to 1030, then again from 1500 to 1830 - the driver may or may not have the same bus for the 'second half'

If a big operator is running a tendered / contracted service, then the driver duties will not be exclusively on this route if this ends up with some part duties - even if there is a separate rota mainly for route X, then one or more duties will include a spell on other work to balance the duties.

Small operators who only have one local bus route usually have other drivers who do a school contract in the peaks, and can therefore do the middle part of the day on the local bus route, or staff who spend part of their day on other work, e.g. cleaning or admin or engineering, and drive in service for part of the day.

Or they may have a part-time driver or two (possibly someone semi-retired) who just does one 'half' each day.

There are a lot of ways round it.

As has been said, any booking on / off time, travel time from / to base and that sort of thing needs to be considered in working / driving time - as do the practical issues of where / how drivers take a break, and how driver 2 gets to the bus that driver 1 took out of the depot that morning - is it walkable (and bear in mind is this safe bearing in mind the driver coming off duty could be carrying cash), does driver 1 take their bus back to depot and driver 2 bring a second bus out?) or is a shuttle vehicle of some sort needed?

Another strand to this is that if the off-peak layovers will be more than 15 minutes each time, these could (legally) be used for a split break (although many companies' agreement with drivers won't allow for this sort of thing.) Although I would argue that any time the driver is expected to be changing blinds / ticket machines, and loading passengers before departure, could not form part of those 15 minutes.

Bear in mind if you schedule to the limits of drivers hours, and the bus is delayed at all, you're going to have a problem.

The other thing a very small operator will need to consider is having some back-up if a driver reports sick or if a bus won't start. This is one of those things where a larger operator gains through economy of scale - if your entire operation is one vehicle, you potentially need a 100% level of spare buses...

 

[90019]

With larger operations each driver will generally have 2 spells of duty during their shift, and in most cases, each bus will be handed from one driver to another several times during the day. The exception might be 'spread over' duties where the bus and driver will be on duty (say) 0700 to 1030, then again from 1500 to 1830 - the driver may or may not have the same bus for the 'second half'

With the shifts I do, there is only one I can think of which involves driving the same bus twice, ones which involve the same route more than once are almost all on different buses.

The majority of my shifts are three part, usually consisting of two short parts of 2 to 3 hours, with anything from a 15 minute to an hour long break, and a long bit of 4 to 5 hours, with at least 45 minutes break (though most are at least an hour) either before or after depending where it is in the shift.
Two part shifts on my rota will involve two parts of 4.5 to 5 hours, the break in between them can be anything from 1 to 2.5 hours.

The longest I have on any bus are a few shifts which have roughly 5 hours 10 on a 29.