I recently came across a piece of research that stopped me in my tracks.
Not because it was new.
Quite the opposite.
The research, Stress, Fatigue, Health, and Risk of Road Traffic Accidents Among Professional Drivers: The Contribution of Physical Inactivity, was written by Adrian H. Taylor and Lisa Dorn and published in the Annual Review of Public Health in 2006.
Read the original Taylor and Dorn research – Annual Review of Public Health
That date immediately caught my attention.
2006 is the year I started driving buses.
I've now reached 20 years as a bus driver.
So here I was, two decades into my own career, reading research published at roughly the point that career began — and recognising many of the issues frontline bus drivers are still talking about today.
Timetable pressure.
Fatigue.
Long working hours.
Stress.
Recovery.
The effect working conditions can have on the person responsible for safely controlling a large passenger vehicle.
It left me with a fairly simple question:
Twenty years later, how much have we really learned?
Working conditions are a safety issue
One thing that has increasingly concerned me throughout my time in the industry is the tendency to separate driver working conditions from bus safety.
We talk about safety technology.
We talk about driver training.
We talk about collision avoidance, telematics, monitoring, policies and procedures.
All of those things have their place.
But there is still a human being sitting behind the wheel.
And the conditions in which that person is expected to work matter.
The Taylor and Dorn research examined stress and psychological states, sleep, fatigue, alertness and health status in relation to professional-driver performance and accidents at work.
It also discusses something every experienced bus driver will immediately recognise: time pressure.
Professional drivers work to schedules and timetables, often through congestion and circumstances completely outside their control.
The research discusses time pressure, particularly in congested conditions, alongside long hours spent driving. It also describes urban bus operation as work involving high demands while drivers can have relatively little control over the circumstances they face.
That pressure doesn't disappear because somebody has produced a timetable saying a journey should take a certain number of minutes.
Twenty years of seeing it from the driver's seat
I've spent those 20 years actually doing the job.
I've driven through congestion, diversions, roadworks, severe weather and major events.
I've dealt with passengers who need additional time and assistance.
I've seen what happens when running times don't reflect conditions on the road.
I've experienced the difference between a duty with sensible recovery time and one where you feel as though you're chasing the clock for much of the day.
And one thing I've learned is that a safe professional driver has to be prepared to put safety before the timetable.
If somebody needs additional time to board, they get it.
If a disabled or elderly passenger needs time to sit down safely, they get it.
If road conditions mean I need to drive more slowly, I drive more slowly.
If I'm late, I'm late.
A timetable should never become more important than somebody's safety.
But that shouldn't mean we ignore the pressure created when schedules repeatedly put drivers in that position.
The answer cannot simply be telling drivers not to feel pressured.
The system itself needs to be designed so that safe driving is supported rather than continually being placed in competition with performance expectations.
When 20-year-old research sounds remarkably familiar
One part of the Taylor and Dorn research that particularly caught my attention discusses occupational scheduling and the ability of drivers to adopt appropriate safety margins.
The researchers discuss how strict occupational scheduling can interfere with the adoption of those safety margins during prolonged driving. They also highlight the potentially dangerous combination of being in a hurry and driving for prolonged periods.
For research published in 2006, that should give today's bus industry something to think about.
Because drivers still talk about running times.
We still talk about recovery.
We still talk about fatigue.
We still talk about getting caught in congestion and then spending the remainder of a journey trying to recover lost time.
The technology surrounding the driver may have changed enormously in 20 years.
The human being hasn't.
Fatigue and recovery matter
Driving a bus isn't simply sitting in a seat turning a steering wheel.
It requires sustained concentration.
You're constantly processing pedestrians, cyclists, other vehicles, traffic signals, bus stops, passengers moving around the vehicle, vulnerable road users and countless other potential hazards.
At the same time, you're providing a public service.
You're answering questions, dealing with fares and tickets, assisting passengers, managing disruption and sometimes dealing with challenging behaviour.
That cognitive workload matters.
Recovery time matters.
Breaks matter.
Shift design matters.
Access to toilets matters.
Cab temperatures matter.
Fatigue matters.
These shouldn't be regarded simply as employment or industrial-relations issues.
They are safety issues.
What I've been campaigning for
These are issues I've increasingly been raising through my own trade-union, campaigning and policy work.
One of those areas is the Bus Drivers' Bill of Rights.
For me, the importance of a Bus Drivers' Bill of Rights goes far beyond traditional terms and conditions of employment.
Safe working schedules, adequate rest and recovery, decent welfare facilities, safe vehicles, protection from excessive fatigue and the ability of drivers to raise genuine safety concerns all have a connection with the safe operation of a bus service.
I've also been arguing for something broader: that the frontline workforce needs a stronger voice when decisions are being made about how bus services are designed, governed and monitored.
That includes the discussions now taking place around franchising, Enhanced Partnerships and greater public control of bus networks.
My view is straightforward.
If we're redesigning the way bus services operate, the people who actually drive those services should be part of that conversation.
Not after everything has been decided.
From the beginning.
From campaigning to asking bigger questions
Over recent years I've found myself looking increasingly beyond what happens within an individual bus company.
I've used Freedom of Information legislation to ask questions about bus safety, governance and transparency.
I've contributed to consultations and parliamentary processes.
I've engaged with local and combined authorities.
I've attended industry events and listened to the discussions taking place about the future of buses.
I've raised accessibility issues from both a driver's perspective and my experience as the parent of a disabled daughter.
And I've continued asking a question that I think deserves much greater attention:
Where is the frontline workforce in all of this?
There are understandably discussions involving government, local authorities, operators, industry organisations, consultants and passenger groups.
All have an important contribution to make.
But there is also an enormous amount of knowledge sitting behind the wheels of Britain's buses every single day.
Drivers know where schedules don't work.
We know where recovery time disappears.
We know where congestion creates continual pressure.
We know which stops passengers struggle to use.
We know where infrastructure looks acceptable on a plan but doesn't work particularly well in reality.
We know what happens when the theory meets the road.
That doesn't mean drivers have every answer.
We don't.
But our experience should be part of finding those answers.
Bus reform gives us an opportunity
The bus industry is going through perhaps its biggest period of structural change for decades.
We're talking about franchising, Enhanced Partnerships, greater local-authority involvement, publicly owned operators and new approaches to network planning.
Whatever model is chosen in a particular area, I believe this period of change gives us an opportunity to think differently about safety.
If public authorities are going to have greater influence over how bus networks are designed, specified and monitored, safety needs to be embedded into those arrangements from the beginning.
And that means looking beyond whether an operator complies with minimum requirements.
It means asking what kind of working environment the network itself creates.
Are running times realistic?
Is sufficient recovery built into schedules?
How is fatigue monitored?
What happens when congestion repeatedly makes a timetable unachievable?
Are safety indicators being scrutinised alongside punctuality and reliability?
Are lessons from incidents shared?
And crucially:
Are the people actually driving these services involved in those conversations?
Accessibility is part of this too
My interest in these issues isn't limited to the driver's cab.
Accessibility has increasingly become an important part of the work I've been doing.
An accessible bus is only one part of an accessible journey.
A passenger also has to be able to reach the bus stop safely, wait there safely, obtain useful information, board the vehicle and complete the journey.
As a driver, I see the consequences when infrastructure doesn't work.
And as the parent of a disabled daughter, I also understand that accessibility isn't always something that can be measured simply by whether a wheelchair ramp exists.
Anxiety, uncertainty, poor information, inadequate lighting and an unsafe waiting environment can all determine whether somebody feels able to use public transport in the first place.
That's one of the reasons I've increasingly argued that accessibility needs to look at the whole journey — not simply the vehicle.
And again, it's why frontline experience and the lived experience of disabled passengers should be part of transport planning.
Safety transparency matters too
I've also spent considerable time asking questions about the way bus-safety information is collected and made available to the public.
This has become another important part of my campaigning.
If authorities increasingly publish information about punctuality, reliability, passenger numbers and customer satisfaction, I believe we should also be asking what equivalent information passengers and workers can see about safety.
How many people are being injured?
What types of incidents are occurring?
Are trends improving?
Are particular risks recurring?
What lessons are being learned?
And what role does the workforce have in identifying those risks?
For me, greater public involvement in bus services should also mean greater public accountability.
Safety shouldn't be the exception.
Twenty years later
What struck me most about reading the Taylor and Dorn research wasn't simply what it said.
It was when it was written.
2006.
The year I started driving buses.
Twenty years later, we have dramatically better vehicle technology.
Buses themselves have changed enormously.
Passenger information has changed.
Ticketing has changed.
Data has changed.
The political and regulatory debate around buses is changing again.
Yet we're still discussing timetable pressure.
We're still discussing driver fatigue.
We're still discussing recovery time.
We're still discussing stress.
We're still discussing the relationship between working conditions and safety.
Perhaps after 20 years the question shouldn't be whether these things matter.
The research has been asking these questions for years, and my own experience from two decades behind the wheel tells me they're questions the industry still needs to take seriously.
The question now should be:
What are we going to do about them?
For me, the starting point is relatively straightforward.
Stop treating driver welfare, working conditions and road safety as completely separate subjects.
Design bus networks that recognise the human being behind the wheel.
Give frontline workers a meaningful voice in the decisions that affect how services actually operate.
Measure and scrutinise safety as seriously as we measure punctuality and reliability.
And recognise that protecting bus drivers isn't only about protecting employees.
It's about protecting passengers, pedestrians, cyclists and everybody else who shares our roads.
Twenty years behind the wheel has taught me many things.
Perhaps one of the most important is that the safest journey isn't necessarily the one that reaches the terminus exactly on time.
It's the one where everybody gets there safely.
That must always come first.
Research referenced
Taylor, A.H. & Dorn, L. (2006)
Stress, Fatigue, Health, and Risk of Road Traffic Accidents Among Professional Drivers: The Contribution of Physical Inactivity.
Annual Review of Public Health, Volume 27, pp. 371–391.
Read the original research at Annual Reviews
About the author
Lee Odams is a frontline bus driver with 20 years' operational experience in the UK bus industry.
He is Branch Secretary of the RMT Nottinghamshire & Derbyshire Bus Branch and Secretary of the RMT National Industrial Organising Conference of Bus Workers.
Alongside his frontline role, Lee has developed a particular interest in bus safety, driver welfare, accessibility, safety transparency, workforce involvement and the changing governance of bus services.
His work has included engagement with local and combined authorities, Freedom of Information research, parliamentary and policy submissions, participation in industry events and campaigning for stronger recognition of frontline experience within transport decision-making.
Disclaimer
The views expressed in this article are my own and are written in a personal capacity, informed by my experience as a frontline bus driver and trade-union representative.
They should not be taken as representing the official position of my employer, the RMT or any other organisation unless expressly stated.
The academic research discussed in this article was published in 2006. I have used it as a starting point for discussion alongside my own frontline experience. It should not be interpreted, by itself, as evidence of current conditions at any particular bus operator.
Source: https://leeodams.blogspot.com/2026/11/twenty-years-behind-wheel-why-driver.html
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