Are Wages Going Up For Bus Drivers?

[RogerOut]

Apparently Stagecoach in Merseyside have agreed a pay deal of in excess of £17 ph. Is this true? If so ,this would exceed London drivers pay wouldn’t it?

I may be wrong but that’s what I’ve heard.

I believe most bus drivers wages average between 11-12 ph. Is that still accurate?

I left the buses to go HGV driving, I got my license years ago in the RAF but never really used it. I basically couldn’t afford to stay on the buses and found I could earn more money HGV driving.

Admittedly, I’d have loved to have stayed on the buses if they pay was better.

 

[Stan Drews]

Apparently Stagecoach in Merseyside have agreed a pay deal of in excess of £17 ph. Is this true? If so ,this would exceed London drivers pay wouldn’t it?

I may be wrong but that’s what I’ve heard.

I believe most bus drivers wages average between 11-12 ph. Is that still accurate?

I left the buses to go HGV driving, I got my license years ago in the RAF but never really used it. I basically couldn’t afford to stay on the buses and found I could earn more money HGV driving.

Admittedly, I’d have loved to have stayed on the buses if they pay was better.

I would doubt that £17 ph would apply for basic hours, but quite possible to be an enhanced rate for certain hours worked.

 

[Titfield]

GSC have announced increased their rates of pay on their website

https://www.morebus.co.uk/bus-drivers

 

[RogerOut]

Yes, I’d find it hard to believe that bus operators would pay drivers £17ph.

 

[WatcherZero]

£14.20 basic at Stagecoach Merseyside from Jan next year.

 

[PaulMc7]

First in the Greater Glasgow region is £13 an hour at Scotstoun and Caledonia depot and £12.35 at Blantyre, Overtown and Dumbarton with a double pay overtime rate. They also scrapped starter rates too so everyone comes in on those rates.

Interestingly, it means new starts effectively got a 21-22% pay rise going from the old starter rates of approx £10.70 to £13 an hour.

 

[RJ]

Yes, I’d find it hard to believe that bus operators would pay drivers £17ph.

I run a bus company and pay £25 an hour for covering routes using an articulated bus and £20 an hour for other buses. From sign on to sign off, breaks not deducted. I pay allowances for meals and mobile phones.

Also run a points scheme whereby drivers accrue points that can be redeemed against a day of CPC periodic hours training, or for pay if that training is supplied elsewhere.

 

[Flange Squeal]

Sullivan Buses is an operator of a mix of TfL contracted, commercial, schools and rail replacement work and they publish a comprehensive leaflet detailing their various rates of pay that might be of interest. It shows the extent of variation with them depending on work type, days, times etc.

http://www.sullivanbuses.co.uk/pdf/Staff%20pay%202022.pdf

(Sorry mods, I don’t know how to copy this sort of document in a quote type fashion on a phone device, but felt it worth sharing given the nature of this topic)

 

[Tetchytyke]

Basic's up to £14-£15/hour now in Merseyside, both Stagecoach and Arriva. As you note, a lot of people left the buses when HGV wages shot up, so there's been pressure to increase wages to recruit and retain drivers. Strike action has also brought additional pressure.

 

[RogerOut]

Surely 14ph for a bus driver is pretty good for Merseyside and to be honest lots of places outside of the South East?
Stagecoach South West goes to 13 ph later this year.

Will the south east operators have to up their pay ?

If Stagecoach and Arriva in the south east are still paying around 11-12 ph, that’s not going to help retain drivers when even supermarket delivery drivers are on that, and don’t need a PCV license or CPC.

 

[3rd rail land]

Are wages of £14/hr+ outside London viable long term with the current fares charged?

Surely bus companies are in a situation where they have to increase wages in order to get enough drives to provide the service but equally in order to pay the increased wages they may have to increase fares.

 

[RogerOut]

Are wages of £14/hr+ outside London viable long term with the current fares charged?

Surely bus companies are in a situation where they have to increase wages in order to get enough drives to provide the service but equally in order to pay the increased wages they may have to increase fares.

Difficult question to answer. They need enough drivers to run the service and pay enough to keep make it attractive, but equally need enough paying passengers to make it viable.

 

[3rd rail land]

Difficult question to answer. They need enough drivers to run the service and pay enough to keep make it attractive, but equally need enough paying passengers to make it viable.

I also think they need to run a frequent enough service to make it attractive to potential passengers. For example when I used to live in North Surrey a lot of routes were run at a frequency of one an hour from about 7am-7pm Mon-Sat. I found that due to traffic the hourly bus would at times arrive at a different time to that advertised. If it arrived slightly early it wouldn't hold at the stop until the advertised time so I had to account for that possibility every time I needed to take a bus.

Ultimately I chose to cycle everywhere instead. Far more convenient and was also cheaper when all the bus fares I saved were totted up. Plus I could get about on Sundays when buses didn't run. Train stations were too far away from wherever I wanted to be to be of use in a lot of cases.

 

[Stan Drews]

Difficult question to answer. They need enough drivers to run the service and pay enough to keep make it attractive, but equally need enough paying passengers to make it viable.

I think I hear the sound of pennies dropping. Unfortunately the politicians don’t appear to carry cash anymore, so are oblivious to this relatively simple economic equation.

 

[markymark2000]

I also think they need to run a frequent enough service to make it attractive to potential passengers. For example when I used to live in North Surrey a lot of routes were run at a frequency of one an hour from about 7am-7pm Mon-Sat. I found that due to traffic the hourly bus would at times arrive at a different time to that advertised. If it arrived slightly early it wouldn't hold at the stop until the advertised time so I had to account for that possibility every time I needed to take a bus.

Ultimately I chose to cycle everywhere instead. Far more convenient and was also cheaper when all the bus fares I saved were totted up. Plus I could get about on Sundays when buses didn't run. Train stations were too far away from wherever I wanted to be to be of use in a lot of cases.

But to trial enhanced frequencies to try and encourage more people to the service would cost significantly more now than it would a few years back. Bus companies are also petrified of trying new things (hence why we go into a cuts spiral) and so already being petrified of trying something new and now the increased cost associated with the enhanced frequency, the case for any enhancements is dead in the water unless the public purse stumps up the cash. Unfortunately, the way of the UK now is that everyone wants state funding as then if it goes wrong, it cost the company nothing but if it goes well, the company takes the profits.

 

[WatcherZero]

Yes higher wages may motivate going back to lower frequency, higher capacity services. If it keeps up you may see companies experimenting with alternative vehicle designs again like they did 15-20 years ago.

 

[markymark2000]

Yes higher wages may motivate going back to lower frequency, higher capacity services. If it keeps up you may see companies experimenting with alternative vehicle designs again like they did 15-20 years ago.

Can you expand more on what you mean about experimenting with alternative vehicle designs? I'm interested to find out more.

 

[WatcherZero]

Around the mid 2000's lots of the the bus companies were experimenting with articulated (bendy buses), longer (sometimes tri-axle) double/single deckers and segregated or guided vehicles styled like trams to try sell as a premium service. It was also about this time that the New Routemaster project was launched.

 

[markymark2000]

Around the mid 2000's lots of the the bus companies were experimenting with articulated (bendy buses), longer (sometimes tri-axle) double/single deckers and segregated or guided vehicles styled like trams to try sell as a premium service. It was also about this time that the New Routemaster project was launched.

Thank you, appreciated.