Piloting a poo-powered bus

The nerves are only at low flutter as I slide into a seat in the First Bus training room. I’m here for a bus driving taster session, to get an idea of what life’s like behind the wheel of 10-tonne passenger vehicle. What could possibly go wrong?

With a mischievous grin, driving examiner Steve Perris talks us through the trials ahead: a 20-question theory test; then a series of driving exercises with points for accuracy and deductions for errors: reversing into a tiny rectangle, stopping precisely at a bus stop (every millimetre from the kerb counts), a tortuous chicane (don’t squash the cones) and a ‘length test’, which involves backing the rear wheels onto a colour-coded target. 

The vehicle they’re risking is a shiny new biogas-powered ‘poo bus’.  “It’s destined for the No.2 route”, jokes First’s West of England managing director James Freeman. He explains that the tasks we’re about to tackle are similar to those undertaken by newly recruited drivers – with a bit of the Bus Driver of the Year Championships course (held every year in Blackpool) thrown in for good measure.

A confident bus driving instructor called Gary goes first, to show us newbies how it’s done. We stand back reverentially and study his use of mirrors, his unhesitating mastery of the oversized steering wheel. Predictably, Gary makes it look easy.

First contestant is Tom, a reporter from the Bristol Post, who also does a fine job. He even looks like he’s enjoying himself. 

Soon enough, I’m up. Palms sweating, I climb into the driver’s seat. Instructor Beata Koscieszynska (below, with Mike) talks me through the basics, like the strange little handbrake by the window, and the little green button that opens the doors. “Ker-swish!” I like that button.

In the driver’s seat, I feel about 10 feet off the ground. I can’t see any of the wheels in my mirrors, nor where the front and back of the bus are. 

“Relax, everything’s going to be fine”, purrs Beata. Gently we pull forward to the starting point.

Then an errant shoelace becomes tangled in the steering column and the bus surges forward. I can’t get my foot back down to slow it. Beata tumbles backwards, knocking herself out on the luggage rack. The bus thrusts implacably through a frankly inadequate wire fence, and before I know it we’re bouncing across the Bristol & Bath Railway Path. Two speeding cyclists meet a squishy end under my front wheels, before the bus smashes through a waist-high brick wall and plummets onto the railway lines below. The express train from Paddington has no time to stop, and whump! Everything goes black.

At least, that’s what I was expecting. 

Instead, the bus ambles graciously along. It’s quiet and smooth, like piloting a giant rectangular boat. The bus’ rear end seems about 100 miles away. I inch it back, eyeballing all mirrors like a lunatic, and manage to stop it in the reversing challenge box. More or less.

Forward into the bus stop simulator we crawl, at barely walking pace. My kerb-closeness is inspected minutely with a measuring device. Again, it looks OK. 

Pretend passengers board, role-playing to assess my customer service skills. I smile a lot and make up the prices. 

Then the chicane. The big challenge. Its cones are spaced only inches wider than the bus. To turn right, you first have to swing a very long way left. Because the bus’ front wheels are somewhere behind the driver’s seat, every corner feels like a crazy overshoot. I listen out for the squelch of mangled cones, but hear only the breathy sighing of the bio-gas engine. That and Beata’s urgent instructions, “Left. Now! Slowly. SLOW!”

The bus is an automatic, making for counterintuitive speed control: ease up and you go faster; put your foot down and you stop. My brain never fully accepts this. 

The target for the Length Test is two yellow rectangles, which are supposed to end up under my rear wheels. There’s a sweet spot painted green at their central point; wheels here wins an extra 100 points. But the edges are pink; leave your rubber there and points are deducted. 

Edging back in awkward learner-driver bounces, I end up on the yellow. “It is OK,” says Beata. “Now you relax.” 

And it’s over. Relief floods over me, even as Doug the Bristol24/7 photographer leaps and lunges around me, capturing the moment. 

Back in the visitor gazebo, coffee and banter flow as the scores are marked up on a flipchart. Somehow, I seem to have come first among the morning’s hopefuls (3rd overall for the day). Only two errors in the theory test, faultless bus stop technique and well-received customer service twinkle. Does this win me a job with First? “Not quite,” says driving standards manager, Dave Moore. New drivers are carefully selected, and then given six weeks of intensive training. “It’s a good job”, Dave says, “and we want our drivers to be the best they can be.”

After today’s sweaty-palmed trials, I have even more respect for those bus drivers than I had before. They do a full-time, front-line customer service job whilst piloting 10+tonnes of metal through a traffic-choked city. In my experience, they generally do it with a smile – which given the flak they endure on a daily basis, is an achievement in its own right. 

First Bus are currently recruiting new drivers. Fancy giving it a go? You get paid to train and around £21k per annum, plus free bus travel, naturally. For details see www.firstgroup.com.

Read more about Bristol’s poo-powered bus

Photos by Doug Jewell