City Bus Driver

From coastline breezes to hilltop views, I’m plotting the perfect route, before I’ve even touched the steering wheel. Crossing Edinburgh without leaving my chair: A homework journey on Service 4. A desk-chair journey across Edinburgh, from campus calm to Pentland peaks, undertaken with nothing but a stop list, an overactive imagination, and the faint hope that the live version won’t involve too much swearing. Section 1: The Academic Warm-Up We start at Queen Margaret University, a place where the roads are wide, the air is fresh, and the biggest hazard is probably a student wandering out mid-scroll on their phone. From Queen Margaret Drive to Milton Link, it’s all fairly civilised, the sort of stretch where you think, I could do this all day. Then comes Corbiewynd and Parrotshot. According to Street View, these are perfectly normal residential turns. But I’ve driven enough “normal” turns to know they can become “hold-my-coffee” moments once real-life Edinburgh drivers get involved. By ...

So, I haven’t driven the 26 yet, not a single stop behind the wheel. Instead, I’m doing what sensible drivers do: hitting the books (or in this case, Google Maps and Street View) to get ahead of the game before the big day. This route stretches from Drum Brae Gardens, a place so quiet you could hear a squirrel sneeze, all the way to Seton Sands, where holidaymakers outnumber the pigeons. Over 80 stops, five distinct sections, and enough variety to keep me on my toes for a while. Section 1: Drum Brae to Haymarket, Where the Suburbs Whisper (And Parked Cars Plot) We kick off at Templeland Road, an area so residential that the biggest challenge might be convincing parked cars to share the road. Seriously, it’s like they hold secret meetings on who’ll fold in their wing mirror next. The Edinburgh Zoo stop looks like a highlight, where kids hyped on sugar and excitement take over the pavement like a small, energetic stampede. I’m bracing myself for the chaos before it even starts. Past Murr...

No, it’s not just the heating on full blast. You smell smoke. It’s not the usual chip wrappers or someone sneaky vaping upstairs, this one’s real. Don’t panic. You’re not expected to fight it, just handle it. Stop the bus, get folk off safely, and call it in. Job done. Now, here’s how to do that without making the six o’clock news. Right, let's not beat about the bush. If you ever find yourself driving along and notice smoke sneaking out from somewhere it shouldn’t, or worse, you smell burning and it’s not just someone’s leftover chips, then congratulations, your shift just got a whole lot more interesting. Now’s not the time to panic. Here’s what to do. First off, stop the bus. Sounds obvious, but you’d be amazed. Bring it to a halt as safely as possible. We’re aiming for “calm professional” not “emergency stop on a roundabout.” Try to avoid stopping in tunnels, outside schools, or next to anything that might go boom, petrol stations being top of that list. But if the fire’s getti...

There’s a particular kind of silence on a bus when the driver’s clearly lost. It’s polite. Deafening. Forty pairs of eyes pretending not to notice as you brake-check your dignity and mutter, “Just testing the brakes, folks.” That’s the nightmare scenario. It lives rent-free in every driver’s head when learning a new route. So, how do you avoid starring in your own mid-shift navigational horror film? You plan. You cheat. You become a master of controlled blagging. And you build a route learning strategy that works with your brain, not against it. A tangled ball of earphones resting beside a neatly coiled bus route map on a plain table. Homework Comes First (Yes, Really) Before I even set foot near the driver’s seat, I treat Google Maps like a tactical battlefield. The stop list isn’t just a list, it’s a puzzle to break down. I don’t look at it as a straight A-to-B run; I chop it into zones that make sense to me. Suburban crawl, city centre free-for-all, and that last stretch where you e...

Preparing for Double Deck: Essential Steps Before You Take the Upper Deck Helm Transitioning to a double decker isn’t just a step up, it’s a shift in responsibility, awareness, and skill. From vehicle height hazards to mastering route-specific quirks, here’s what every driver must know to ensure a smooth, safe move to the top floor.  So You Want to Drive Upstairs? A Survival Guide for Double Deck Newbies There's a moment in every bus driver's life when the call of the upper deck becomes too loud to ignore. Maybe it's ambition. Maybe it’s curiosity. Maybe you just fancy a new view. Whatever the reason, you're about to make the move from Single Deck to Double Deck. Congratulations, you’re about to gain a staircase. But before you get too excited, there's homework. Paperwork. And a good chunk of "are you sure you know what you're doing?" to get through. This isn’t just about driving a taller bus, it’s about adjusting to a whole new set of quirks, hazards,...

Hospitals are just cities in soft shoes. The traffic’s slower, but it never stops, and no one’s indicating. I’ve been spending more time in hospital lately. Not as a patient, just visiting. One of those stretches that creeps from the odd evening to most days of the week, until you start recognising the vending machine repair guy and knowing which café has the strong tea. When you’re in that long enough, not in crisis, not in control, just there, you start to notice things. Patterns. Flows. Familiar strangers in uniforms. The way the place moves. And what struck me, more than anything, is that hospitals are just another kind of traffic system. A city of motion. Only instead of horns and headlights, it’s rubber soles and trolley wheels. There’s a certain choreography to it all. You can tell the staff from the visitors within two seconds. The staff move with purpose, straight lines, no hesitation. They walk like they’ve already made three decisions you haven’t caught up with. The visitors...

The weather’s warm, the schools are out, and everyone’s forgotten how doors work. Here’s how to keep your bus moving (mostly) forward. Top Tips for Managing Summer Crowds on the Bus Summer brings out the best in people, by which I mean their full volume, their worst planning, and their complete inability to stand behind a yellow line. If winter is for head-down commuting, summer is a circus, and the bus is the main tent. Here's how I survive the season without combusting or being mistaken for a tour guide. 1. Open the doors like you mean it, but only when you’ve assessed the species outside Approach the stop with caution. Not for traffic, for what’s waiting. You've got the dad who's already pointing where everyone should sit. The kid who's mid-meltdown about a dropped Calippo. The teenager pretending not to know the rest of them. And hovering off to one side, the wild card: the preboarder. You know the one. Does a wee side-step shuffle as if they're going to let oth...