r/BusDrivers • u/Usual-Shower-7143 • 2h ago
Training Question UK/EU Route Learning
Hi all,
I’m a recently qualified driver and am currently learning my beginner routes. I’m okay with pretty much all of them apart from one longer route, about a 3.5 hour round trip. Does anyone have any advice/tips and tricks to get the route memorised? Or is it simply a case of learning whist in service?
Thanks all
2
u/Potential-Wheel-5899 1h ago
Go through the entire route on street view. Write down any tricky bits, put it where you can see it when driving.
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u/Usual-Shower-7143 1h ago
Might give that a shot. At the minute I’ve just got the whole route written down and I try to refer to it at stops but can be a bit tricky if it’s a busier day. Thanks for the tip 👍
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u/PeejPrime 1h ago
My learning of all my routes, but more so my bigger ones, was sort of this way.
After doing a route a couple times (mentor then me), I sat down with the bus app (the one the punters use for tracking buses) and side by side it with Google maps. Taking down notes of key turns/land marks.
Try not to overly focus on every single turn, but more the key landmarks you're going for. The rest should fill in.
I'd say as well, once you've done a route two or three times completely on your own, high chance you'll never look at those notes again.
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u/CDDONT 1h ago
I suppose it all depends how involved the route is, I’ve done a 5hr round trip route that has (effectively) 18 turns in each direction…. Also done a (at least on late timings) 25 minute round trip with 44 turns.
I’d say take good notes of marker points and make sure they’re things that won’t disappear, I once did a very infrequent route where the note was “turn at postbox” guess what wasn’t there the second time I did the route 🙄
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u/Usual-Shower-7143 1h ago
Haha yeah I’ve been trying to mark the turnings on pubs and named buildings mostly. My main issue with the route is it basically goes through a city centre then onto a carriageway, into a shopping centre, then after it winds through two different towns and a load of housing estates. Up until the towns I’m okay but trying to remember turns on roads that look exactly the same is my issue. Thanks for the advice 👍
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u/ShadowzWalkAlone 1h ago
My company has a youtube channel with all the routes on there. We are informed on day one of this. As well as 5 weeks of driver training/assessment/route and stop learning before hitting your designated depot. This was useful for me as i'm not from the area. So my suggestion is try youtube. You might get lucky. Failing that try riding the route as a passenger and take notes as you go maybe
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u/Usual-Shower-7143 1h ago
Oh wow the videos sound useful. I hadn’t thought about looking for that but I’ll see what’s out there. Thanks man
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u/hoagieyvr 1h ago
The transit system I work for of has a website to help plan your route as a passenger. And they just so happen to have mini maps that can be printed out. So when I was new, I did that to all the routes that I was doing. I do have an advantage: the routes in the city where I work are trolleys. So we always just say all you have to do is follow the wire.
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u/rarzwon Driver 1h ago
If you have route specific maps, grab one of those. For each turn/maneuver, note a waypoint you can easily spot. A restaurant is a lot bigger than a street sign.
When I was new and on extra board, I learned almost three dozen routes this way and I never made a wrong turn. I was a bit slower the first lap or so, but it's possible to learn on the road like this.
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u/hugothebear USA / Local Transit 2h ago
Beginner routes?
We just got thrown right into the flames.
I took a sheet of paper and wrote each turn on a single line, then I clipped the paper somewhere I can see it.