Bus or Coach Driver Career

Bus and coach drivers move passengers on confined, nationalised or abroad journeys. Road security is a significant part of the job and drivers will be liable for the wellbeing of their passengers. Being a bus driver, you will have to travel alongside home routes, creating scheduled stops along the way to pick up and drop off passengers.

Your duties and responsibilities will include:

• Obtaining charge and giving tickets
• Helping passengers who have problems
• Inspecting transport passes
• Providing schedule or path information

You can also work in ferrying schoolchildren, community transportation, hospital patients and the elderly to their destinations. Your responsibilities as a coach driver will be the same as those on a bus but the journeys will be longer, for instance taking out day trippers, travelling between cities or driving on holiday tours. The additional tasks will include:

• Packing and unpacking luggage
• Examining passes and tickets
• Ensuring that all the passengers are back on board for the homecoming journey and subsequent to any programmed stop

You can drive to abroad destinations, which will entail additional duties, like keeping passengers informed with travel details and coping with foreign authorities, for example when going through border controls. You will be liable for cleaning the coach, formulating the basic checks before taking your vehicle out and giving reports on any events to the inspector back at the depot.

Qualification, Education and Experience

For completing this course you should have a Passenger Carrying Vehicle (PCV) licence. You should have a full EU driving licence and must be 21 years old (or 18 for driving minibuses). If you have a full EU driving licence, several companies will take you on and guide you to obtain your PCV licence. You can also train individually to obtain a PVC licence by taking private lessons through a local driving school. You can also get a licence application form at your home Post Office. You can also begin as a volunteer driver, working for community transport, which you can merge with another job, for instance as a care assistant. To work for a non-profit-making community organisation, you should possess a full EU driving licence for 2 years and be a minimum of 21 years old.

Check the Careers in Passenger Transport site for additional information regarding bus and coach driving as a profession.

Driver CPC

An EU Directive has recently come into force, stating that new PCV drivers have to obtain a Certification in Professional Competence (CPC) and the private licence. It is also known as the Driver CPC. Accessible PCV drivers can get the CPC through regular training. Check the site of the Transport Office for more information on the Driver CPC test and training.

Training Details

PCV driver training generally continues for 1 to 6 weeks. You must pass a theoretical and practical driving test and a medical examination. You will get the information regarding the PCV test from the Transport Office. Being a new employee, you will receive introduction training, which will include operating ticket machines, customer care, education routes and health and safety issues. You can also take the following National Vocational Qualifications:

• Passenger Carrying Vehicle Driving NVQ (Level 2)
• Road Passenger Transport NVQ (Level 2) with the option to specialise in bus or coach transport

You can also obtain a BTEC Certification in Transporting Passengers by Bus and Coach. This is a short-term course, appropriate for new applicants or drivers who need to take continuing professional development (CPD).

Skills and Knowledge

• Superior driving skills and awareness of traffic regulations
• Excellent customer service and clear communication skills
• Knowledge of health and safety matters
• Capability of understanding traffic signs and following orders
• A confident but courteous attitude towards difficult passengers
• Outstanding geographical knowledge

You will also have to understand abroad traffic laws and have some fundamental foreign language skills if working overseas.

Salary and Other Benefits

Trainee and new drivers generally make between £12,000 and £15,000 every year. Expert tour coach drivers can be paid around £25,000 each year. Shift work and overtime can increase these amounts.

Working Conditions

There are rules and regulations governing your weekly maximum driving hours. You can work for 48 hours weekly which will include weekends and evenings, from 6am to midnight on the confined services. Being a coach driver, you will be restricted to 56 hours driving weekly, with a maximum of 90 hours over any 2 weeks. If you take a holiday tour, you may have to stay away from home for a few days. Your employer will generally provide you with the uniform.

Different Opportunities

You will find job opportunities with companies operating home bus services, those with extensive distance operations and local holiday tour companies in the United Kingdom or abroad. You can also become an inspector or a service controller, driver training instructor or depot manager if you have experience. If you start your own business, you will have to achieve the operator's Certification of Professional Competence (Passenger Transport).

You will find the following helpful for job opportunities:

• Coach Tourism Council
• Transport Office (search for bus and coach operators)