Welcome to the the blog those that have not been here before, I attempt to share interesting information relating to buses with a focus on Manchester.
Normally and recently people have been moaning about the use of AI when I am creating these and this one isn’t created with AI, Now I use AI to check what I put makes sense and it does tend to shape the post after I have written it, Well in this on that isn’t going to happen and you will see why although I am good at getting what I want down in writing it making sense really isn’t a strong point.
I recently gave up driving buses and for a little while became part of the Night team that is responsible for cleaning and fueling the vehicles every night ready for the next mornings run out, Over the time I have seen many comments on social media platforms to the remarks of “This bus is really dirty” So I am going to attempt to clear some things up with this post.
Lets start with our start time is 23:00 so 11pm, Before we have started the Back shift who start much earlier and have cleaned the garage before they set to work on the buses they typically will clean 40 to 60 buses in a shift before we start.
Some might believe we have quite a bit of time to clean and prepare a bus for the morning but this is anything but the truth. So there is two time frames we work off but they are very close, When the bus washes are going we have around 5 to 6 minutes per vehicle, depending on the vehicle and the size of the team this can be plenty of time to nowhere near enough time.
So let me run though the team on a normal everything perfect day the night shift team is a team of 5, The team roles are 2 drivers, 2 sweeping and 1 fueller. Buses that are unable to come off the road on to the wash due to it being full are parked up on a bay with the hazard lights flashing to show us that it is dirty and not been though the system yet.
The wash is like a convayer belt In the depot that I work in the bus first drives on to the Fuel pumps where it is moved on, We have two sides of the wash and there is a team each side however the fueller is responsible for fuelling on both sides.
So bus pulls on The fueller has to get the fleet number, Mileage off the dash and log it all down on a paper sheet which is a back up to the computer system, Once paperwork is done the bus is scanned onto the computer system which is normally those black tags you can see around the fuel caps of the buses, Each company uses there own version but it will pretty much be the same, One scanned and you told the computer you want Fuel you have to enter the mileage that you wrote down from the dash, Although it is a digital system this part is still very much manual. Then the pump will become active just like at a normal fuel Station, the main difference is our pumps are slightly larger to allow a faster flow of fuel like a truck pump and have a clip to hold the fuel flow on. While this is happening if the vehicle needs Adblue then this is done in the same way but telling the system you want adblue and it will activate that pump. To answer the question of how much fuel do each bus get? This is as simple as they go to the pump clicks off or if fitted with a fuel gauge to it says 100% this can be on a normal day between 60L to 160L. some of the older vehicles don’t have fuel gauges so when the pump clicks off we have to just presume that the tank is full. As I mentioned before the fueller is running both sides of the wash and 4 pumps in total so there is a level of back and forth. Once fueling is completed again the amount of fuel taken must be put on the paper sheets as back up to the computer system.
While the fueling is taking place the Driver and Sweeper are at work inside the bus cleaning, the Sweeper does the upstairs of the bus and the Driver downstairs, Now you may think we sweep and mop every bus well there just is not enough time for this and in the reality the worst parts are mopped but not the entire bus if we can help it, This very much is decided on the condition of the bus, As well as the inside of the bus they have to clean the wheels before it goes into the wash. This doesn’t sound a lot but when your chasing bottles around the bus and newspapers it can take a little bit of time and before you know it the 5 minutes is up and the wash is flashing for the bus in there to move forward which is a prompt for the driver to go and move it out the wash and park it up. Just a note of this the Drivers on a night will walk in the depot i am in around 5 miles a night if not more, They will park the bus up where it needs to be or the router would like it to be parked up, There is a depot plan which is pretty much the same each night but it does sometimes change. While the driver is parking up the Sweeper is moving the bus they just done into the wash and the timer starts again. If there is room the driver will bring a bus off the bay to join the line of vehicles. If the fueller can they will move the bus waiting to come onto the pump forward to the pump but sometimes this is also let to the sweeper to move it forward before the driver can bring one around.
On an normal night this is a endless cycle and we will do around 60 buses which doesn’t sound a lot but at the start of the night it is a endless stream of vehicles once they have been done we are left with the few left out on the road overnight with the last one coming in at 6am, This bus you might think if you getting on at 4am or 5am is a clean bus that just come from the depot and this is wrong it will be dirty it has been out all night and evening the day before and is yet to come in for fuel and cleaning.
This isn’t mentioning when we have sick and other messy stuff to clean up which puts a hold on the line and starts to put us behind when the vehicle is taking some time to clean.
If the buses was in a better state when they came in would we have more chance to mop them, Not really at the start of the night as stated it is endless when we are getting to more the 4am to 6am yes there is enough time.
So you might be wondering then on the back of this when the buses do get cleaned, Well in short this is given to the day shift to do when the vehicles are in the workshop or in the yard for a while the cleaners are given a list of vehicles they need to do which is on rotation and that is what they do in the day and they deep clean the vehicles. What we do at night is a quick clean to make the vehicle respectable again for the morning and the next days service.
I hope this helps signing off for now.
