Bus Driver Salary

The transit systems that help our society to move along through their daily routines have been a great benefit to communities everywhere. One of the biggest forms of public transportation that has been around for quite some time now are buses. The bus systems have been key in connecting children, teenagers, and adults to destinations that are imperative to their livelihood. A bus drivers salary is based upon many different factors, all of which are equally essential.

The bus systems itself breaks down into three main components that have three different transportation responsibilities. There's the school bus line, intercity and transit buses, and motor coach operators. Each one of these bus transportation systems have the same, basic responsibilities of transporting their passengers to their destination safely, regarding all safety regulations, state driving laws, and timeliness.

A bus driver salary while working for a school bus line is dependent upon the factors of location, school system, experience, and education. One of the first things a bus driver for a school system must do is receive the proper training. These drivers are responsible for the safe transportation of students of all ages, this type of responsibility alone is one that is never taken lightly. Their training generally covers 2 to 8 weeks of in-class training consisting of road laws, bus maintenance, maneuverability, driving on roads and on the freeway. The other skills they must learn through their training is how to drive in all weather conditions, reading schedules, filling out paper work, and dealing with students in large groups. In the beginning of their training, while learning to drive, bus drivers will have the opportunity to drive their assigned bus around with students to get a comfortable feel for driving a bus. Once school starts, the driver will be supervised by a person of management, who will give any guidance that is necessarily needed. This could include how to handle the children in particular situations, certain routes due to high traffic, and handling weather conditions. Once they've past this part, drivers are ready for their certification. Bus drivers must take a license certification, one that grants them their commercial drivers license (CDL). Once this is obtained, they are able to drive students. Their schedules are broken down into two shifts generally, morning pick-ups, and afternoon drop-offs. This allows for the bus driver to rest for the day somewhat, and get any errands taken care of. Generally, these bus drivers work a number of twenty hours a week since they have weekends off. During the summer, most drivers are on vacation, unless the school district offers bus services for students who are in summer school.

For intercity and transit bus drivers, their training is the exact same as those who would drive a school bus. However, their routes and hours vary. These particular bus drivers start their day filling out paper work, including information about the bus' overall maintenance, scheduled trips and stops, expected customer count, etc. Once all of these logs are filled out, they can begin their day. Unlike bus drivers, intercity and transit bus drivers are not able to take their bus home with them, they must stay among the garage. The routes for these bus drivers are on a schedule, and generally the routes are the same for bus drivers. On some occasions, these routes can be scheduled differently depending the hours and drivers scheduled for the day. Their hours are scheduled on shifts that are broken up in the early morning, afternoon, evening, and midnight hours. Intercity bus drivers are able to take their passengers across state lines to their destinations. Granted, these state lines are crossed in distances that do not exceed a certain mileage. These drivers are responsible for charging their customers the appropriate fairs, and being on time to their stops as scheduled. They also must be able to answer questions about bus routes, transfer points, and in some cases, they are responsible for announcing stops. As their hours can vary all across the twenty four hour range, they also work weekends. Depending on which state they work in, or how their schedule is planned, they will also work some holidays.

Motor coach operators are responsible, when hired, to take people on long distance trips. Due to the length of some of these trips, these bus drivers find it typical to be away from home for a couple of days. The bus driver salary for these drivers tend to be a bit higher than the above bus drivers because of the long hours they are required to drive. As their training is nearly the same, as well as the paper work, these drivers must also go through the same state licensing in order to be a bus driver. These drivers must know the time it takes to complete their trip, and the time it would take to get back. On some of these long distance trips, they must also make stops along the way in order to drop-off and pick-up passengers who are on a layover. They must also be responsible for knowing and handling all of the pay-tolls they come across. Should their trip be delayed for situations such as traffic, weather, mechanical malfunctions, or unruly passengers, they must immediately report it to the headquarters that they left from, and the one that they are on their way to. Announcing delays such as this is imperative to keeping waiting passengers in terminals aware, allowing them to make alternate plans if need be. These drivers are also known to run city tours for those passengers who are tourists. The bus drivers are responsible for planning out the itinerary for these trips, and forming an upon communication with the passengers. Bus drivers who are in this sort of business generally have two to three workers at a time on these tour buses. One who talks to the passengers, the bus driver, and another one for mechanics or a back-up of sorts. Because of the business traveling involves, these bus drivers can find themselves away from home quite a bit, working early mornings, afternoons, evenings, and the hours past midnight. They can also work on the weekends, as well as holidays. Their hours are dictated by the traveling schedule of passengers. If a bus driver is in the business of tour buses, their schedules don't go so late into the evening, but they can find themselves working on the weekends and holidays as well.

The bus driver salary, on average for school bus drivers is $13.00 an hour. The highest percentage makes $20, the bottom ten percent makes $8 an hour. For transit and intercity drivers, they make on average $17 an hour. The highest percentage making $27 an hour, and the lowest ten percent making $10.