Allocating Buses

There are 3 factors which determine which bus is allocated to a driver.

First, some routes have tight turns so require a short wheel based bus. At the Burwood depot this means a Mercedes bus. Second, some routes are advertised in the published schedules as using buses which have wheel chair access. At the Burwood depot this means one either the Volvo B10
or Volvo B12. These 2 options are mutually exclusive as none of the short wheel based buses have wheel chair access. There are many routes where the type of bus is not important so any bus can be allocated.

The third factor is due to the fact that the buses are parked so tightly in the depot parking area over night that the ‘outside’ buses have to be allocated first. This factor takes lower priority to the first 2 so the buses must be parked in a manner that the first 2 factors can be satisfied.

There is a computer generated bus allocation schedule. This contains, amongst other things (*), the name of the driver, the type of bus and the time of departure. The listing is in time of departure sequence. A ‘shed driver’ (the people responsible for organising the buses in the depot) hand writes the bus number (and, usually, the location of the bus in the depot parking lot) next to the driver’s name. The driver (is supposed to) sign the schedule to acknowledge receiving the bus.

This process happens twice a day as drivers return to the depot for their meal break.

(*) The schedule also contains the number of kilometres the bus will run. Curiously, this number is expressed to 3 decimal places - a metre. Changing lanes will add more than this to the distance. A driver will typically drive 100-120km in a day.