Seat locations on the bus from worst to best

[GodAtum]

Every bus passenger knows there’s a clear hierarchy of bus seats. But which are the worst and which are the best?

1. Up front near the driver - Not only are you at risk of an old person squeezing in your seat and telling you their deeply-prejudiced views on Strictly, you’re exposed to every draught from the opening doors. And the driver might have a companion who stands up front chatting and gives you dirty looks like you’re trying to get in on their good time.
2. Three-quarters back on the lower deck - Everyone gets on, hurries past the freaks at the front, and goes further back to see if there’s a double seat free. But because everyone does that there never is so you’re either sitting next to some bus wanker or they’re sitting next to you.
3. Back of the lower deck - At school you were one of the cool kids who ruled the back seat with stories of videogame prowess and fingering. Instinctively you still head there, but you’re not one of the cool kids now. You’re 34 and those teenagers talking about a **** in a **** coat are talking about you.
4. Back of the top deck - The seat furthest away from the driver so the most rebellious, but the teens can’t be bothered to trekking up here when there’s more people to insult down below. Position yourself in the middle with your arms outstretched and feel like a king. However spilled liquids will make their way towards your bag.
5. Front of the top deck above the driver - Hands down the winner, this seat that allows you to pretend you’re flying down a hill, hovering through an urban landscape, see into the bedrooms of passing houses and find out what’s on the top of bus stops. You’re like unto a God.

 

[Dai Corner]

Best

Front seat upstairs on a decker, obviously.

Any single seat if the bus is crowded.

Worst

Ones where wheel arches intrude, giving us limited legroom

Longitudinal seats

Lacking USB if Bus is so equipped

 

[py_megapixel]

On a double decker, I'll take any seat in the front row of the top deck, preferring the offside (above the driver), assuming I can have two seats to myself. Second to those are the seats immediately behind the stairs. After that comes any other upstairs seat, with ones with more legroom preferred.

On a single decker, or if I have to sit downstairs on a double-decker, and I'm going some distance, I generally prefer to be near the middle, with the aim of avoiding both the incessant drone of the engine and the flow of people getting on and off. I do quite like being in the first seat at a certain level (i.e. where the floor goes higher to clear the wheels) but other than that I don't have a specific preference.

If I'm only going a short distance I will generally stay downstairs and sit in one of the seats nearest the front. I quite like the tip-down seats (unless the wheelchair space is required) as there's loads of legroom.

 

[Gloster]

Either the seat over the front-wheel behind the door (Now available again!) or one of those over the rear-wheels. Stepping up to these seats is not very difficult and stepping down again to get off is easy: sitting down in a normal seat is simple enough, but getting up again is not so easy. The seats at the back require so many half-turns and part steps up or down (all done while bent over) that they are are best avoided. Upstairs is out: it takes me ages to get up there, but coming back down is worse as it is difficult to find where to put your feet on the turns.

 

[GusB]

The front o' the bus, they cannae sing, cannae sing, cannae sing...

On a single deck, front nearside was always my preferred spot before started putting in silly things like luggage pens. That was in the days when steps had to be ascended in order to board the bus in the first place. These days it tends to be towards the back next to the emergency exit as there is more legroom.

On a double decker it's downstairs at the back. I only very occasionally go upstairs, and it tends to be towards the front, but not in the very front row.

 

[Megafuss]

Best:

Top deck, in one of the row of seats directly opposite the stairwell.

You don't have anybody sitting on the other side if the aisle

Worst:

Bottom deck of a double above the rear wheel arches (i am looking at you, Stagecoach Classic E400s)

 

[fgwrich]

On a single deck, it's either behind the driver (Think E-MMC!) or above the rear offside axle (I think that comes from my love of the Bristol RE!) while on a double deck it's beside the driver (Again think E-MMC!) or the first two rows on the top deck.

 

[stuu]

Rear facing at the back of a double decker is worst.

Top deck at the front is the best, goes without saying surely!

 

[Tetchytyke]

Worst: Urban90.

Next.

 

[175mph]

On the E200 MMCs, on the right hand side of the bus next to the middle emergency exit door as there tends to be more leg space available for me.

 

[83G/84D]

Any seat on a First bus Trident.Terribly uncomfortable with no padding and hard as a rock. Thankfully there aren’t many left in service as any journey on one is too long.

 

[Geordie driver]

So far everyone has got it wrong.

The best seat is the driver's seat.

 

[Mikey C]

I don't like the front row upstairs. Worse foot room, and I'm always conscious of the upper windscreen in front of my head! Instead I prefer the 3rd row (nearside). Near enough to the front for a good view, near the staircase and not next to a window pillar so I have more shoulder room.

On older single deckers (certainly in London dual door spec) I used to like the seats near the back where the offside emergency exit was, as there was more legroom there. On Wright Cadets the wheel arch in front of those seats was at JUST the right height to be a footrest also!

 

[Bletchleyite]

I don't mind wheelarch seats in some cases. You often get a bit of extra legroom, and putting your feet up on it can be comfortable.

I usually go for the exit, though, as in most buses it's the only one with acceptable legroom.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

On a decker, naturally it's up top. On a single deck, usually those immediately above the rear axle - leaves the step-free seats for those less mobile.

Back in ye olden times when I used to commute to work on a VR, N/S back seat - warmest seat on an otherwise chilly decker!

Worst: Urban90.

Next.

Absolutely. Too many times have I been on an MPD sourced from a dealer and experienced that.

Next to that is any seat next to the emergency exit on a Streetlite

Any seat on a First bus Trident.Terribly uncomfortable with no padding and hard as a rock. Thankfully there aren’t many left in service as any journey on one is too long.

Not every First Bus Trident. Granted, many of them were awful (as were B10BLEs) from 1999 to 2002 but I remember some of the ex London/Glasgow ones were reseated and weren't bad; I think some of them even did a last hurrah in Cornwall after being with BoS.

I might add that I've just come back from a trip to that there Europe. Cue seats that are nothing other than bare plastic. Oh, and don't say "it's because they're feeder services for the metro so average trip time is low" because the metro was equally comfortless!

 

[Trnsprt4Sctlnd]

Who would have thought this would’ve had such a response, a very trivial thing clearly.

Lower front seats you find the older people.

Upper rear most your likely to find idiots of many kinds.

Upper front is likely the one to go for unless you’ve parents who have crawled up stairs with a gaggle of kids in tow.

Bottom deck of many models, the rear most seats facing forward and rearwards are often not great seats but more kinda of flat pads which are uncomfortable to sit on.

Anything near an emergency exit if it’s a door which isn’t sealed greatly can be drafty.

On these basis, bus transport isn’t attractive, is it?

 

[Dai Corner]

On these basis, bus transport isn’t attractive, is it?

It's generally not attractive to the majority of people, no. I rarely used buses once I'd learned to drive and bought a car until I retired and got my concessionary pass and had plenty of time on my hands. People think I'm mildly eccentric for doing so when I could drive.

 

[Statto]

For me best seats on a decker, upper deck front nearside seat, unless the front offside seat has more legroom, which some vehicles have. On a Single deck, nearside above the rear wheel arch, you can see the road ahead.

Worst seats, rear facing, ones that have very little legroom, i was on a Diamond West Midlands Citaro a few years back & the floor was on an angle really uncomfortable, & Urban 90, does anyone like those seats.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Back in ye olden times when I used to commute to work on a VR, N/S back seat - warmest seat on an otherwise chilly decker!

Still is. I used to make a beeline for the nearside rear seat on the Stagecoach E400s in the depths of a Newcastle winter. Toasty warm.

 

[Observer]

First have a batch of Scanias starting with YM52 for the reg. I believe some finally ended up as coke cans by now but I think a few are still running about.

The seats are absolutely atrocious, worse than Urban 90s and they were being put out for just about any service including long distance.

How First never swapped out decent available seats from older stock that was getting scrapped is beyond me. They should never have been fitted originally.

 

[route101]

Usually for me its upstairs towards the front on left hand side. I like the frame of the front windscreen in my view, so 2nd, 3rd or 4th seats from the front. Sometimes find if you are right at the front, even if its quiet you will get people surrounding you at the front of the bus. On double deckers I almost always go upstairs unless I have lots of shopping/bags or a really short trip.

On single deckers its the row that is on the left hand side that has good view ahead of the road. First or second row that is raised. The very back row on single deckers can be too high, ie on Eclipses. Not a fan of seats over wheel arches or any of the front of bus seats.

 

[WY Bus Spotter]

Best: forward facing front seat on a single deck (nearside). Upstairs front on a double deck, unless it's a very warm day then this quickly becomes the worst.

Worst: upstairs back on a rough route ater dark or any seat that doesn't have enough leg room for 6 foot+ people. Or next to the rattling emergency door on a Streetlite

 

[61653 HTAFC]

No point in arguing about best seats on a decker, that's already established fact at this point. On a single however, you can't beat the sideways facing seats above the rear wheels on the few modern-ish buses that have them. Plenty of legroom and no feral youth able to sit behind you.

 

[Tom Gallacher]

Any seat on a First bus Trident.Terribly uncomfortable with no padding and hard as a rock. Thankfully there aren’t many left in service as any journey on one is too long.

Just curious, why specifically the Trident? Surely it's the particular body not the chassis or is it different on a Volvo chassis.

 

[Ken H]

Back seat upstairs on a back loader, preferably the one by the stairwell. I had hours of fun looking at the top of the conductors head in the mirror.

Many double deckers these days have restricted legroom on the front offside seat because they squeeze a seat in between the stairwell and the front. So I tend to prefer the offside one. May just be a Wright Eclipse Gemini thing mind.

 

[route101]

Just curious, why specifically the Trident? Surely it's the particular body not the chassis or is it different on a Volvo chassis.

The 03 plate Tridents/B7TLS at First Glasgow had more comfortable seating.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 19 Apr 2022 ==

On coaches I prefer a seat on the right hand side as I can watch the traffic on the other side of motorway etc.

 

[Trackman]

Top deck, in one of the row of seats directly opposite the stairwell.

That's my trick, especially if I don't know where to get off - I can survey the situation and make a mad dash if need be.

 

[Tom Gallacher]

The 03 plate Tridents/B7TLS at First Glasgow had more comfortable seating.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 19 Apr 2022 ==

On coaches I prefer a seat on the right hand side as I can watch the traffic on the other side of motorway etc.

Where they bodied by the same bodybuilder? You would have had bodies supplied both from Falkirk and Wigan at that time. I don't know if Scarborough bodied deckers during this period but they may have done so as well. Maybe each factory had their own preferred seat supplier

 

[Mikey C]

I used to like the upstairs back seat on the (proper) Routemaster. Quite cosy!

 

[LUYMun]

Sitting anywhere in the upper deck would be no good if there are high-back seats, which restrict views out of the windows. As others have pointed out, the front seats are very cramped. Even in cases which buses have low-back seats, I prefer to sit on the seat behind the stairs as this gives the maximum view around me.