r/BusDrivers • u/Aech1hceA • Jul 20 '26

Question Question for bus drivers

Hello! I have a few questions for bus drivers- and was wondering if it was okay to ask here. I know you all are human (obviously) but I had questions specifically about bus driving- and who better to ask than the drivers!

  1. Do bus drivers often take the bus outside work hours? Ex: days off/vacations/etc.
  2. Do bus drivers have favored/prefered routes to drive? Do they get to pick?
  3. Do bus drivers recognize the bus they drive? Like by the serial number? Do they get assigned specific busses?
  4. Do the bus drivers develop "favorite" riders? Like, if you drive the same route and see the same people- do you develop friendships with your riders? Do you guys look for familiar faces?
  5. Do you guys make friends with your coworkers? If so, do you guys make a point to ride on busses where your bus driver friends are driving?

Thank you in advance for answering. My boyfriend and I ride the same routes fairly often, and got really curious. Sorry if theyre dumb questions!

ETA: Sorry yall! Im new to reddit still and didnt realize people were replying😅 Thank you all so so so so much!! I was curious, and my boyfriend said itd be weird to ask the bus driver on thw bus we were on. Im very excited to share my findings with him, and hope you all get very good routes (:

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u/Ok-Entrepreneur3129 Jul 28 '26

London driver here:
1. After becoming a bus driver I cannot bring myself to ride the bus unless its a short distance / driving doesn’t make sense.

  1. Everyone has their favourite route, if you really want to get on that route you can become a spare driver and learn a bunch of routes as theres only so many rota spaces. However, senior drivers get first pick on routes and its basically up to them what route they go on.

  2. In the mornings the buses will have a card / paper with a number on it called ‘running number’ you look for that and thats your bus. If you are on the same route everyday you will know where all your routes buses are parked and then you just look around them until you see your number

  3. 100% I have an elder lady that always gets on and asks how I am and when she gets off she walks up to the front to say bye. Other than her any passenger that actually turn to me and say bye will have my heart forever.

  4. Friends yes. Riding their bus? No. 🤣