On the Buses The Route Masters: Running London's Roads

RADIO: 'The A13 westbound is moving slowly between...'

Hold on tight.

London is full up...

HORNS BLARE

Are you going to allow them to jump on the back of your bus?

I'm afraid I won't be able to take more passengers.

..thanks to one million more people arriving in the last ten years.

Transport for London now has more than 30,000 workers

battling day and night...

WHISTLING

-Wake up!

-..to stop the city grinding to a halt.

-Three people have been shot up there.

-War, it's war.

All right, I'll get the police and ambulance straight down there.

The first week I was here, I thought, what have I done?

With unique access to the nerve centre of the capital's transport system,

this is the inside story of the people who keep London moving.

You're not only a bus driver, you become a psychotherapist and psychiatrist.

You get the people that like to talk to you. Some of them even flirt with you.

I said, "At the moment, mate, sit down quietly.

"We're not going to hell, we're going to Ilford."

'It's the lifeblood of London. That's why the buses are red, aren't they?'

HE LAUGHS

There's my certificate, look. I'm a bus driver!

Thank you very much. You're so nice.

Don't worry, no problem at all.

'London's changed a lot, but, yeah, I love it. It's London.'

This programme contains some strong language.

-Morning.

-Morning. How are you?

-Fine, thank you.

-Morning.

Morning, son.

Morning, Sandra.

-Good morning.

-That bus is there, yeah, yeah. Quick as you can, mate.

The time is now 5:07am.

The time to play with buses this morning, I think.

I don't even know what day it is. I'm spending too much time here.

It's the start of the day shift.

All right, let's go and get some coffee down our necks.

An army of bus drivers is preparing to take 8,500 iconic red buses

out onto the streets of London.

Man, where did I park the bus?

Let's get ready to meet the adoring public.

Have you got your gum shields ready?

-Bit more.

-Wicked.

Right.

Thank you very much. Have a good day.

Demand for buses has exploded in the last ten years.

Everyone else is queueing. We can all manage it.

Let's all be nice human beings today.

6.5 million journeys are now made by bus in London every day.

Twice as many as on the Tube,

and more than on the rest of England's buses put together.

All right?

As a result, the job of being a bus driver in the city

has changed beyond recognition.

Got to go. Got to go, got to go.

First runner of the day.

If people put an effort in, I'll wait.

People are so busy. Busy, busy, busy.

I don't know what they're doing, but they're busy.

Everything's about getting there on time.

I don't think people are doing more, I just think they're hurrying more.

You know, it must be dreadful, constantly rushing.

I'd have a nervous breakdown.

Sadie has been driving buses for just four years.

Says something about driving a red double-decker bus

that I've always wanted to do.

'Even when I used to get on one to go to work, it's like,'

"Oh, I'd love to have a little go."

I thought I'd be waving at everyone and everyone would bring me...

..sweets and biscuits,

and everyone would be very grateful and they'd be lovely, but no.

Absolutely not like that whatsoever!

Some days it's mental.

Excuse me, there's a queue right down the back there.

Let's all be nice to each other.

I touch my Oyster, you drive the bus!

That's the agreement!

The bus stop is closed.

I'm sorry, I'm not allowed to open the door.

BUZZER SOUNDS

Oh, no, he's not going to do it. Oi!

-Please, man, I've got ten minutes to get there.

-If you can pay now...

I ain't got the money on me, I've got to get it from my girlfriend.

-But you're not listening to what I'm saying.

-Four stops?

-It doesn't matter whether it's one stop...

-Can I get on then?

The guy hasn't got no respect! You can't talk to a customer like that!

'This bus terminates here.'

Oh, no! No, it doesn't terminate here.

It doesn't terminate here!

You don't normally terminate here, you normally go round the left.

SHE GROANS

People will complain about anything.

-And everything.

-The bus is very cold.

Very cold? It's summer, sir. We turn the heating off on 1st May.

-No, you don't put no heater on. The drivers are aware.

-1st May, the heaters get turned off.

Takes me an hour to get to Hackney, it's cold. This is the only place that I get cold.

My office is warm, my house is warm.

But few passengers realise that,

in order to keep 8,500 buses running smoothly,

every bus is now tracked, monitored and told what to do

by a system unique in the world.

Tango 118, Tango 118.

You've come through to CentreComm. You've got no route or running number displayed,

so nice and clear, your route, your running number, in that order for me, please, over.

Years ago, you'd have a bus inspector with a peaked cap

somewhere in the street with a clipboard,

noting off the times of buses.

But, he could only see from one side of the road to the other.

'Now, we've got absolute precise geographical information

'through GPS on all 8,000 of our buses.'

We know precisely where they are and what they're doing.

CentreComm oversees buses across the whole city

and responds to emergencies.

I'll liaise with the police and I'll come back to you.

I think people don't realise how much goes on behind the scenes

to keep the service running.

'All people see, when they wait at the bus stop,'

they want to know how long the bus will be, they want a clean, tidy bus that will get there on time.

They don't realise the amount of things that go on behind the scenes.

He's got head injuries? OK. We've got an NTC on the way. 1012.

We have our mapping system,

we have cameras absolutely everywhere.

There aren't too many places that not only a bus

but an individual could hide within London that we can no longer see.

Morning.

Morning, darling.

Move the kitchen sink out the way and you will find your pass.

Alex is an old hand who's seen this new system come in.

If they'd have been able to see these buses

and what we're driving and the job we're doing now,

if I'd been able to see that 22 years ago, I'd have thought,

"This is Space:2001, isn't it?"

'It's nothing like it used to be.

'Everything's automated.

'You've got people in the control room watching your every move,'

they can tell what road you're on, what time you should be there,

how early you're running. They can tell everything.

What speed you're doing, how your braking is. You're watched over.

-Like a babe.

-Your location, 37? How are you doing for time?

The new system makes 21st-century bus drivers

among the most monitored workers in the country.

If you can just hold a couple of minutes for me, please.

As well as being observed by the central control room,

each bus driver is tracked and directed from separate, smaller control rooms,

known as iBus, based in depots across the city.

Yeah, driver, just to let you know that I'm informing you of report

for delaying the service at Romford, over.

No problem, driver. Thank you very much.

He likes calling me "love" for some reason. I don't like that.

If he called me "babe" I might have let it go, but...

SHE LAUGHS

10:30am, and the morning rush is over.

Yeah, 36 receiving, over.

But Vicky Joblin is one of 1,000 iBus controllers

who'll continue to scrutinise a driver's every move throughout the day.

Driver, can you leave Finsbury Park three minutes late for me at 15, over?

My best friend calls me the bus pimp.

Basically because I tell the buses what to do and where to go.

'I do get called Blakey, sometimes, though, from On The Buses.'

Or The Fat Controller's another one, that's my sister's favourite.

Vicky's job is to space out the buses

and keep an even gap between them.

This is our beloved route diagram.

These blobs here are individual buses, and then just down here,

this number here, just tells us how early or late the bus is running.

I'm looking for buses not running together, that's what I'm looking for.

I'm looking for a nice even space between the buses.

'We call it custard, when it's a full screen of yellow.'

That means everything's on time.

It's either a bowl of custard or bus bingo.

When you've got every single bus on time and they're all in order.

House!

Right, so, driver, you're currently now 12 minutes late,

it's given me a really big gap in my service now, over.

Yeah? Any mechanical problems,

whether or not you get your friend to help you,

you must call us and let us know. Do you receive that, over?

You know, we're not asking them to fart gold, or anything like that,

it's just...drive your bus on your timecard, if you can.

It's not... It's not a rocket science job.

Controlling is, though.

Oh, yeah.

We've got degrees and stuff.

Well, we've got a BTEC.

Does that count as a degree?! It's advanced!

Running number 247. Have you departed yet?

No, I need a toilet break, as well. I've just arrived.

I mean, you've seen all that traffic, they know there's loads of traffic.

And then... "Have you left?"

Can you just give them about three or four minutes and then go?

They tell you to turn somewhere, you just do it, you know?

They're running the show, you know what I mean?

Can you show Piccadilly, run it by Shaftesbury,

pick up back in service from Bloomsbury?

They can get on your nerves and go on a bit, you know what I mean?

On your ear all the time, you know?

It's timing.

They give us these timing sheets from one end to the other.

How are we supposed to get there in them times and pick people up?

Cos you're, at the moment, standing at 20 minutes late.

The controller goes, "What's going on with you down here, driver?

"Where are you? Where are you?" "I'm in the bus."

"Where's the bus?" "The bus is in the road! Course it is!"

Then they say, "No, no, you're under no pressure."

Of course you're under pressure.

You're running too close to the bus in front of you with a gap behind you.

Can we get off? We've got a hospital appointment. We didn't know it was coming down here.

Just round the corner, I'm going to turn right, and you should be there to Euston, please, yeah?

Everybody's on top of you.

The public, the passengers, the managers.

The iBus.

You can never please them.

When I started, I started on a Routemaster with a conductor.

It was a different time. They got away with murder.

Thank you.

Three, please.

Three, please.

In the '50s and '60s,

buses were run by both a driver and a conductor,

or clippy, as they were known,

who looked after the passengers on the back and sold tickets.

I do miss what it used to be. It was much more relaxed.

As long as you were driving from A to B,

you were doing what you had to do, you were never bothered.

You were literally your own... As if you were in your car,

your little box, and away you went.

They don't have the fun we had, for one thing, you know?

'What people do who were mechanically minded,'

they knew if you did certain things to a vehicle,

it wouldn't start, so...

What about the one where they let the diesel out?

'They used to let the diesel out and say they'd run out of diesel.

'They used to take the bulbs out, some of them,'

-and say the kids took them out.

-And say the kids took them out!

'Yeah, a lot of that went on'

because people just didn't want to go to work that day.

'My clippy, she needed to do her little bit of shopping,'

I would stop en route and she would whizz off a bit quick

from the back, where there was no doors,

she would do her bit of whatever she wanted to purchase, etc,

back on the bus, and we'd carry on.

'Nobody being any the wiser. You were never bothered, no.'

There was no spy in the cab, there was nothing like that.

As pressured as it may be,

with a starting salary of around £26,000 a year,

people are queueing up to become drivers...

Just stick with me, please, guys.

..with 30 applicants a week at this test centre.

She's 14 foot five inches high, she's eight foot four inches wide.

You're looking at approximately 36 feet long,

and you're looking at a 10-tonne vehicle.

So, have any of you have ever driven a vehicle that heavy? That big? No?

Got a surprise for you.

You probably need to bring your chair a little bit forward for me.

So, at the front of the chair, there's a little bar.

You just lift that and it'll go forward. Nice and comfortable.

In West Ham garage, in east London,

training is just beginning for 44-year-old Christine Ball.

Lift the column. That's it, nice and gentle.

And just lift it. And away you go.

Hold tight, everybody.

Move yourself up.

Gentle, gentle, gentle. We're going to stop at the crossing.

-Squeeze the break. Squeeze it.

-Oh, sorry.

-Ohh! Gentle, gentle!

SHE LAUGHS

Gentle, gentle!

-Are you all right?

-Yeah, sorry!

'On my birth certificate, where it says name of dad

'and what he does, it says "bus driver".

'He used to drive the old 21 bus,'

so it'd be nice to follow in his footsteps cos he's no longer here.

This time we're going to squeeze the break.

'All my driving experience is all down to him.

'He taught me to drive in a van.

'Just wish he was here to see me do it.'

Wonderful. Put the vehicle in neutral.

Well done! You just drove a bus!

APPLAUSE AND CHEERS

I've heard all his stories, different things you could get away with

'all those years ago that you wouldn't get away with today.

'He used to stop off at a pub halfway on his route,'

leave all his passengers on the bus, say,

"Right, I won't be a minute," then he'd get off and he'd go round,

go in the pub, get himself a pint,

get some jellied eels from the jellied eel store,

stand round the other side of the pub, eat, drink his pint

and go back, get on the bus,

and his passengers would be getting annoyed, and he'd get back on the bus and drive on,

and no-one would ever say anything to him!

'Yeah, he's told me some stories.

'I don't think he would've ever coped with today.'

Today's a lot stricter, from what I'm finding out from just being here a week, you know.

Uh-uh, don't cross them hands.

Right, just keep your eye on that nearside as you go through.

Training takes six weeks and a quarter drop out in that time.

-I can't believe I'm driving a bus on the road!

-Not bad for the first day at all.

It's in the genes, you see. In the genes.

The thing is, with this job, it does get in your blood.

Some people come into this industry, "Oh, I'm only going to do it

"for a year." 20 odd years down the line, they are still in it.

They're still doing it, yeah.

I think in a job, you've got to be doing it because you like doing it.

I think so many people do jobs just for the money and they are miserable.

And I think this is a job that I can do, that I'm going to enjoy,

and I've got a reason to be doing it, to follow my dad's footsteps.

That's perfect, Christine, well done.

By lunchtime every day, there are 6,700 buses on the streets,

all being kept to time by the controls.

Let's be quick, please, we're about to depart.

But London's roads can always spring a nasty surprise.

In Plumstead, in the southeast of the city,

a lorry has overturned on a vital bus route.

If it is not cleared before rush hour hits,

thousands of passengers will struggle to get home.

Road traffic is all being sent eastbound up the bus lane.

-What was it carrying?

-Rubbish.

It just come round the corner and it's tipped over.

All traffic on this route is now being forced through just one

bus lane, and tailbacks are already building.

How are we doing time-wise, what's your delay?

Simon Blackburn is TfL's network traffic controller, first on the scene.

It couldn't be in a worse place here, because right down there,

where the bridge is, everything pinches into one lane.

Traffic is just absolutely mullered.

If you look at that camera there, that's CentreCom up there.

They're watching us.

Do not alight your passengers in a bus lane only section.

Let's have a look and see what delays we've got down there now. Right.

That bus there is that one there, so that's 59 minutes late,

that's an hour late, that bus.

And this is probably about two miles down the road.

So as you can see,

the traffic is literally going back through to Woolwich Ferry.

It just affects every bus down the line, all the buses that will

come into this, it will literally go through every bus.

-Thousands of people now face severe delays.

-I know there is an accident.

Get the buses out of the depot

and let us come out, do you know what I mean?

People have had a hard day at work, people want to get home.

They haven't got a clue, they really have not got a clue.

Transport for London set performance targets for the bus companies.

It is down to the iBus controllers to hit them.

If you carry on for now, please...

But today in Plumstead iBus,

the team are struggling to maintain their service.

He has got delays at Greenwich Highway coming back,

before they actually get to that, I think.

You haven't left Woolwich yet, have you?

It's all about just trying to get the buses back on time.

Days like this, it's what we call firefighting.

We try and do the best we can,

put a bus where we can give the best service we can.

Doesn't happen that often. But when it does happen, it is chaos.

I've got to take these calls.

181, do you receive?

Hold on, he wants me, I think.

Carry on for the time being and give us a call when you get back.

It's been like this all the way from Peckham, though.

-It's been murder.

-'I'll leave you to it, good luck.'

I don't know what's going on in Plumstead, but they can see everything, you know.

Let them decide. It's up to them now.

Sorry, driver, can I get off, please?

It's 5pm. Three-and-a-half hours since the crash.

Yeah, release it. All right.

Half a tonne of rubbish still needs to be cleared before they can

even start to move the lorry.

-All right, my love.

-HORN BEEPS

Suddenly, there is a new problem.

PHONE RINGS

CentreCom, Steve speaking.

Hello, Simon. What's the problem?

Well, we've got a bus that's broken down at that set of lights

on Pettman Crescent.

Right, bear with me, I've got a camera there, let's have a look.

It's just gridlocked down there, so...

I think I've got it on camera, mate.

He's literally right at the lights, in the bus lane,

so he's literally blocked everything up for us!

Obviously that's why nothing is moving.

I'll give you a call back, Simon. Thanks, mate, cheers, bye-bye.

Don't you break down!

All traffic being diverted around the accident is now

-stuck behind the broken down bus.

-Which one is it, this one?

What, have you lost your gears?

-It's the doors, Simon, they are stuck open.

-Oh, my God.

So, this is obviously going to have a knock-on effect on traffic,

delays in the area again now.

You couldn't have picked two worse things to happen.

A safety feature fitted on all modern buses means that

if the doors are jammed, the bus won't move.

iBus. That's 70 late, 80 late.

Everything's all creeping up to an hour late now, it's out of control.

Some of these buses, when they get through, it's all...

Try it again, fella.

All right?

Let's go.

Ah. Doors are closed, so that's a good sign.

Wahey! At last.

Traffic is on the move again and the truck should be cleared soon, too.

Transport for London will make allowances for accidents

like this, but in iBus, spirits are still low.

This is turning out to be a bit of a nightmare.

Massive delays and cancelled buses mean

they have missed today's performance targets.

The biggest demand on a controller is targets, meeting targets.

They are constantly being monitored as to their performance.

And if the route has had problems and we haven't met the targets,

there is an inquiry into what has gone wrong.

When it's been a day like this,

at times you do feel like we monitor too much.

But it's the way of the world now, everything is targets.

And if we kept getting bad results, not hitting targets,

they are going to turn round and say, "You are not controlling it

"how we expect you to do it, then we'll give it to another company."

Because if you lose routes, you start losing jobs.

And it's not exactly easy out there to find another job at the moment.

Over six hours after the lorry crashed,

the road is finally open to traffic again.

I'm not saying that we used to fiddle in the past,

but there were, sort of, things you could, um, manipulate,

which you can't do nowadays.

Which is probably a good thing.

Targets came in with privatisation.

By 1994, London's bus network had been sold off to separate companies,

each vying to run the 700 routes.

It started to change, in my opinion for the worse, when it went private.

There is not the closeness now that there used to be, cos you had dances,

you had outings, you had holidays.

All the sports grounds, social side of it, were sold off,

and it was just lost.

They cared about their staff, that was the biggest difference.

You weren't a number.

Now they just train them to do the bus job and that's it.

Today, the buses are owned

and operated by private companies on behalf of Transport for London.

Each company's buses are meant to clock up a certain number of miles.

Lost mileage due to a missing driver or a breakdown means

they lose money from TfL.

We need it in five, 10 minutes. If we can do it. Give it a try.

So in Catford, roving engineer Graham Bellinger is keen to

make sure that faults are dealt with as quickly as possible.

Yeah, it's always a race against time.

But we always get there in the end.

Where has that bus broken down in Dulwich? OK, no problem.

I should be 10, 15 minutes getting there, if the traffic lets me.

If we get too much lost mileage,

obviously it reflects badly on the garage, because each garage

every day has a sort of football league, you know, of lost mileage.

And we don't like to be down the bottom, obviously,

we would sooner, ideally, we would like to be at the top.

If we have zero mileage, we can get some cakes,

that's a little bonus for us.

I think that's them up there, with the boot up.

-See that bus up there on the left?

-HE BEEPS THE HORN

How are you doing? Good?

-How long have you been here?

-Too long!

Too long. Right, where have we got a leak, do you know?

There, it's coming out of there.

That pipe, if you squeeze it, you can see it just dribbles. Or it did.

Got a split in it, see? It's just perished.

You never know what you're going to find.

Could be anything, like, you know?

Could be a few things as well,

it could be one thing which leads to another.

ENGINE STARTS

Definitely puts pressure on you to save the mileage,

but that's your job.

Jobs these days, you know, it's what you have to do.

There is always some kind of pressure for everybody in the garage.

Listen, what happened with this duty, 222? Where the fuck is he?

And he hasn't been back since?

In each depot, there are managers who make sure that drivers

turn up on time and that there is a bus ready for them to drive.

A driver has not turned up for his second half. Um...

But he won't answer his phone, so we don't know where he is.

Abdi, get over to Ladbroke Grove for me,

-see Mo, sign it on, get going, mate, you should be taking over.

-Thank you.

All right. Those that have gone red,

they are the people that should be here, but they are not,

he should have been here at 1602, it's 1608.

The ones in yellow are the ones we've got to keep an eye on.

It's getting close. 1615 he's due in, you know? So he's got 7 minutes.

But it's the ones in red, we don't like them ones.

You can't come in 10 minutes late and say,

"I'll work through my lunch," or, "I'll work 10 minutes late."

You come in 10 minutes late

and that bus misses that slot, that's a gap in service.

We don't get paid.

Right, I've given 21680491.

-Which is where?

-Which is in bay five.

Before privatisation,

only four out of five of the scheduled buses actually turned up.

Before privatisation,

if the services didn't run because we didn't have the staff or

didn't have the buses, there was no real comeback.

You know, of an evening, buses used to run virtually empty

because they were so unreliable

and people didn't know another bus was going to turn up.

But now, you can say a bus is going to turn up

more or less around the scheduled time, so people use the buses more.

The number of bus passengers has gone up by 60% since 2000.

For many, many years,

the bus service in London was run for the benefit of the industry.

Now, of course, it is run for the benefit of the passengers.

We are now living in a retail culture, aren't we?

People are expecting really high customer service standards.

They expect them in the supermarkets, online, on the airlines,

and we are no different here in London with our transport system.

Now passengers have become customers,

drivers are being taught how to give service with a smile.

This is my little cubby-hole.

I think sometimes, the size of the office shows

how important you are. So you can see the size of this room.

Which is quite interesting!

And as you move down the corridor,

the rooms tend to get much, much bigger.

So, I'll let you make your mind up.

Oh, what's over there?

It's Malcolm Critchard's job to encourage drivers to

empathise with their passengers.

People viewing bus driving from outside will probably think,

yes, they get in the cab,

they switch it on and off they drive, they open some doors,

they stop at some stops along the road, and that's it.

That's all they do. But I'm afraid it's much more than that now.

I think it's the people skills side that needs development.

Remember, I'm not here to tell you off.

I don't like the word "fail" at all,

I don't believe anyone fails in this world.

It just means they've got what I would call deferred success.

Malcolm is a great believer in the role-play technique.

I'm the customer and you're driving your bus, OK?

So I'm standing over here at the bus stop.

OK, you're coming towards me and you're observing.

-OK, what have you observed?

-Hurried for time.

-Lovely.

You was a little bit wet, trying to get yourself...

Absolutely pouring down.

-And what things might I say as the door opens?

-Where have you been?

-Yeah, in that tone?

-No, but...

-Do it in a nice tone, Dennis, go on.

Where the hell have you been?!

That's it, that's a bit more like it.

What response might a driver say to that customer?

How are you going to respond? Where the hell have you been?!

-You're lucky I'm here.

-What was that you said?

-You're lucky I'm here.

'I think it's very important to recognise those individuals

'that don't particularly like or want change.

'So you have to think of methods where you can try

'and change them in a different way.'

So, tell me what an ice cream cone feels like.

Malcolm encourages drivers to get in touch with their feelings,

by using songs from West End shows.

So, what does she do? She went...

# So I dug right down to the bottom of my soul

# To see how an ice cream felt

# So I dug right down to the bottom of my soul and I tried to melt... #

'My background was drama, used to perform, let's say.

'And I think that helps, sometimes. It is an act.'

# Give me guidance

# On my knees... #

And I believe that as a bus driver, you are acting as well.

As soon as you get on that bus and you have people involved,

you have to act, you have to act positive.

But not all drivers have mastered the art of customer service yet.

Good afternoon, Buses Customer Services, Angela speaking,

-how can I help?

-What time did this driver go past that bus stop?

-OK. Did you say it was a 390?

-I understand your concerns.

I mean, the drivers wouldn't see those details...

It's unbelievable how much people complain,

because we never run out of work, we literally sometimes get backlogged

because there's so many people just complaining all the time.

I think English people like complaining for some reason.

Did you take any details of the bus in question?

TfL receives 100,000 complaints every year.

Tess is part of the 400-strong team working full-time to deal with them.

Some people write in almost every day.

It's like their life mission,

to just point out what's wrong with our transport systems.

They just go around from bus stop to bus stop -

this timetable is wrong, this one is wrong,

or they'll go on a bus, if it's delayed by a minute, they will

just carry on complaining until they get what they want, I guess.

Did you see the driver,

are you able to describe what this driver looked like?

But complaints about driver behaviour are taken very seriously.

A customer will go on and they've not done anything wrong

and they'll just get this rude driver that's completely

short with them, then they will write in to us

and we have to get the driver interviewed.

We should be able to identify that bus driver

and appropriate action will be taken by his management team.

First of all, he was not expected to be rude or raise his voice

at a customer, because they have been trained to be friendly, kind,

polite and helpful to customers at all times.

Mmm.

Morning.

Morning, mate. Morning.

I say good morning to all my passengers, every one of them.

Regardless. 99 out of 100...

I wouldn't say that, 75 out of 100 won't even acknowledge you.

Won't even know you said good morning to them.

Because they are in their own little world.

Morning, darling. Thank you, ta.

'A lot of people are going to work, they can't be bothered.

'You're just a bus driver.'

I think we are considered the lowest form of life...

-HE LAUGHS

-..by some people.

All right, mate?

'But if I had 100 people and just one of them says good morning,

'it makes you feel good.'

-Morning.

-Morning, how are you?

-I'm good, how are you, mate?

-All right, thanks.

-Good man, thank you.

Yeah, they are the ones that make me happy. That's all it takes. Manners.

Manners, my father would say, manners are a quality of princes.

It's a bit lonely some days, you don't speak to anybody.

It's probably why I like making announcements.

SHE CHUCKLES

I remember getting on a bus years ago

and people used to have conversations.

They don't now, really,

cos everyone is on their earphones, everyone is on their iPhones,

people don't communicate as much anywhere as they used to.

It's a sign of the times, rather than what mode of transport they are on.

Loads of room upstairs...

Sadie only came into the bus industry after her

confectionery business went bust.

Mind the back doors, mind the doors.

'2008, it all went horribly wrong,

'I had to think of something else to do.'

The recession has sort of changed everyone's lives.

You know, in some way.

When you dig deep, with any bus driver,

it's amazing what they did before.

Ex-policemen, ex-army, ex-teachers, just ex-everyone.

We've got drivers that are better educated than the people we pick up.

Believe me. A lot more educated.

Well, I used to be an investment manager

and that was all very well, until I was made redundant,

a few years ago now,

and when you're in your 50s,

especially in investment management,

not that many people are interested in you, to be fair. So, er...

I thought, well, I'd better find something to occupy me.

And I became a bus driver. There's nothing wrong with that.

Since 2008, the number of trainee drivers over 40 has risen

-dramatically.

-Well, I suppose I'm as ready as I'll ever be.

-Today is the morning of Christine's test.

-Any minute now, I'll be off.

Have me last fag. It's like I'm going to be shot!

SHE LAUGHS Any last requests? Mmm.

Still, it's helping to calm me nerves a bit.

-Hello, good morning.

-Good morning.

-I'll be your examiner today.

-Show me to your vehicle, please.

-OK, this way.

How are you today?

-OK, a bit nervous.

-First-timers are always nervous.

That's easy for you to say!

The test lasts an hour-and-a-half.

I done it! I passed!

Only just did it. But I did it.

There's my certificate, look, I'm a bus driver!

I'm going to get a cake and some chocolate, I deserve it, I think!

Good excuse. I've got a trifle in the fridge,

I'm going to have a bit of trifle when I get home.

Yes! THEY LAUGH AND WHOOP

-Well done.

-Thank you.

'I don't think my dad would have ever got through it today,

'because he wasn't very good at reading and writing.

'When he went for his interview, they said to him,

'"You've got to fill this form in."'

He couldn't fill the form in, he said, "Look, I can drive."

So they took him out on the bus, you know,

and he proved to them that he could drive,

so someone else filled the form out for him

and did whatever they had to do, and he got through it

and he was a bus driver, but today, he would never have done it.

SHE SIGHS

Off we go.

Christine may now be a fully fledged driver, but it's only on day one

that she comes face-to-face with the travelling public on her own.

We'll have all these people looking at me,

I don't care, I shall ignore them until I'm ready.

OK.

Wait a minute, all right?

That's it, do me blind...

If I can see where to do it.

Oh, shit. I've now messed up the machine with me jacket.

Shit!

That's it. OK, you can get on now.

MACHINE BEEPS

'I don't know if it would be obvious to the passengers

'that I'm on my first day driving.

'But hopefully not.'

There we go. Stopped.

-MACHINE BEEPS

-'Tyre system pressure OK.'

But I'm not going to get flustered.

It would help if I was in drive, wouldn't it?

The first day is, um... It's nerve-wracking.

Because you're let loose, you're just let loose, with this!

We do tend to have a lot of drivers that pass their test and they

are only around for a few weeks or a few months and then they are gone.

They can't handle it.

'This bus terminates here.'

-'Carry on into Bromley.'

-Yeah.

-'As if you was a 269.'

-Right.

After a cautious morning, Christine's controller has

asked her to terminate early and run back to the garage.

..where the old police station used to be?

'That's it, turn left there, that's Kentish Way.'

But it's not the route she's practised.

'..past the Ford garage.'

I'll be lost in a minute, you watch.

Oh!

Oh, no, I am lost!

Oh, shit!

I'm sure it was there.

Fuck! No, I've totally fucked it.

I'll have to phone him back up. He's going to think I'm mental.

Ohh!

Hello, yeah, I've totally gone wrong, I've cocked it up

and I'm going the wrong way and I'm frightened to go any further,

because I might rip the roof off on a bridge.

'Hang on a minute, let's see where you are. Yeah, just carry on.

-'At the traffic lights, turn left.'

-OK, thank you.

Aah! I wish I was still in bed. SHE LAUGHS

Well, I wouldn't say that was, um, the perfect of mornings.

But then, I suppose it could be worse.

I never damaged a bus, or damaged a person.

It should be the other way round, damaged a person or a bus.

It's perhaps not the ideal start to her career.

But Christine is at least following in the footsteps of her dad,

-who died two years ago.

-I think he would be proud of me.

I hope he would.

He'd probably see it as easy bus riding, really,

these buses, compared to the old ones. They are easy.

He used to drive the old Routemasters.

I'm going to press to see if I can drive a Routemaster one day.

I remember it, getting on the Routemaster and tapping on the front

bus, because they were sectioned off in the cab at the front.

With its distinctive design, the Routemaster remains

the definitive London bus, for drivers new and old.

From the moment it first appeared in the 1950s,

the Routemaster was loved by staff and passengers alike.

The Routemaster has a cult status. It is part of London.

You had a conductor with you, there was a camaraderie, there was

something that as a one-man, you haven't got.

Especially now, the modern-day ones,

they are behind an assault screen,

they have no contact with the public, other than it's just

a face who throws money at them or swipes an Oyster card.

With its hop-on and hop-off platform, it was the last

London bus designed to be operated by both a driver and a conductor.

That's you two and the lady over here, is that right?

-One for the Royal Academy.

-Yes.

A lot of the people in London have probably never been on an RM.

They don't even know what they've missed,

they have missed the part and parcel of London, the RM.

But in 2005, the axe fell on the Routemaster

after almost 50 years of service.

They were hard to use if you were disabled

and buses without a conductor had long become the norm.

It was much mourned.

-Hold on tight.

-BELL RINGS

So to keep both tourists and Londoners happy, 10 original

Routemasters have remained in service on special heritage routes.

St Paul's!

Thank you.

-This is one of the old buses?

-Yes, mate, it certainly is.

-How many do you have of these?

-10.

-Thank you.

-Where are you going to?

-I don't know!

We just hopped on the bus!

We came here just for to ride this bus. Because it is my love.

It takes you back. THEY CHUCKLE

I remember conductors first time round.

And smoking on the top deck.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you, mate.

Let people off the bus, please.

-I actually waited for it.

-Did you?

I prefer the Routemasters.

Especially when it's nice, hot weather.

It's fantastic, I love them. one foot in the past, good old UK.

-Thanks a lot. Goodbye.

-Take care.

Conductor Dave's only method of communication with Mandy is

via a bell, which can be tricky when it's a 60-year-old bus.

That's not good. I don't like that, that's not working.

Yeah, we'll be going in a minute.

-Nothing?

-Nothing. Try and bang the back just a bit harder, Dave.

Don't be frightened of it. Just go along.

HE BANGS ON THE PARTITION

Now try, now try. Try the bell.

Try the bell!

No, nothing.

You tend to forget, because you work on them, then you sort of have

to step back and go, hold on a minute, they are old, yeah.

If people were, like, 50, 55,

I suppose the old bones start to get a bit old, don't they?

Wipers.

Horn. HORN BEEPS

Indicators.

Every bus in London's fleet is serviced every 28 days.

Windows good.

But Patrick specialises in tending to the precious few

Routemasters still in service.

DULL THUDDING

Punctured tyre.

See?

Hear the difference in this?

LIGHTER THUDDING

I love this job.

I really, really do. I tell you.

When the night comes,

I'm just looking forward for the next day to come to go to work

to repair vehicles.

Oh, I just love it.

Handbrake off!

Just imagine, nearly 60 years ago

and this thing still works so good.

Built to last.

See the old time system? Works so sweet.

Before I didn't even come to London,

I was praying one day I would like to come to London to ride these

old buses, these double-decker buses.

When I came here, the first thing I did was jump on one of these things.

'Every visitor come to this country, they want to ride in the Routemaster.

'They don't want to leave London without a picture

'of our Routemaster.'

These buses actually made the same year I was born.

So, that's many, many moons ago.

Patrick was born and brought up in British Guiana.

His dad died when he was a boy,

so a mechanic took Patrick under his wing.

He was the one teach me everything I know.

He always used to say to me, "Learn this work.

"Someday, you might leave this country, go to another...

"some part of the world and you would able to be somebody.

"Learn this work."

About ten years ago, I came to the bus garage and asked him

if there was any vacancy for a heavy-duty mechanic.

All my life I've been doing trucks, from nine years old.

He said, "Boy, we need you!"

And, straight away, I get a job with him.

To be honest, I love these buses.

We're actually... We're growing old together.

I wish I never grow old, but that's some wish!

It's going to be a sad day when they decide to retire these things,

because nothing can replace this dog.

Nothing can replace this bus. Nothing.

Don't care what they build.

Nothing can replace this.

But, in a factory in Northern Ireland,

Transport for London is building something

it hopes will do just that.

A new 21st-century Routemaster,

complete with hop-on, hop-off platform.

And the man who has staked his reputation on the resurrection

of the Routemaster, Mayor of London Boris Johnson, has come to visit.

Good morning. How are you?

They've got the special health and safety stuff. Fantabulous.

We'll take you on a short tour of the production line.

Sorry, you're in the shot. Sorry.

You want to unscrew that.

Why is this bus such a triumph?

Well, it's brilliant for passengers, isn't it?

You now have the sovereign right as free, sentient,

adult individuals to hop on and hop off the platform again,

which was taken away by the health and safety fanatics in Brussels

and has been rightly restored to the people of London.

APPLAUSE

Officially called the New Bus for London, it's already been

nicknamed the Boris Bus and criticised for its cost.

TfL are spending £354,000 per bus on 600 of them

in the hope that they'll become as loved as their predecessor.

The old Routemaster was much-loved and much mourned

and I know that there will be aficionados of that vehicle

who say this is not the same.

Well, it isn't the same. It's better. It's much better.

A Routemaster used to throb, and "Brrrm, brrrm..."

It used to vibrate so much,

it was like being in a washing machine, or whatever.

So I think this is a vast improvement.

Driven by a hybrid diesel-electric engine,

the new buses are a far cry from the old Routemasters.

This is state of the art, latest technology.

I would imagine most of these things here,

the mechanic would need a laptop

to plug in to do diagnostics, et cetera.

He would still be able to do some things, like the basic stuff,

like axles, et cetera, are pretty much the same,

but that hasn't really changed an awful lot.

It's the drive system, the propulsion system,

the hybrid system, where the engine doesn't actually

drive the axle, it's an electric motor that drives the axle.

The technology has moved on massively, probably.

'When these give trouble, I know exactly what to do.'

But with these modern-day laptop "ping, ping, ping"

to find a fault...

It's sad to see that the good old mechanics like us, we will disappear.

Because I grew up in my old-time way,

although I realise that yes, the

world is changing to a computer world,

but still, I'm not fully accepting it.

'I know someday I'll have to retire.

'And I wish that day would never come, but it will come.'

Eight prototypes of the New Bus for London have arrived

on the city streets, complete with a new generation of conductors.

But, in the garage, the brand-new bus is suffering teething troubles.

Any more coming back? Because we haven't got one for the day.

We've got one, two at the moment that are unfit.

Don't know what's the problem with them.

John is one of the new conductors, or Customer Service Assistant,

as he's officially known.

But, so far, he hasn't made it out of the garage.

Today, we're supposed to be taking the bus out about half past eight.

We haven't got one ready. This has been my second day.

If I'm not on it today, this will be my second day. So...

Wait and see what happens.

There is a fully functional New Bus ready and waiting,

but it's off on a promotional tour abroad.

Jay! Why's it got all this on it?

It's going to France.

One's in New York, this one's going to France.

It's going to France.

I haven't even got a bus to drive today and this is going to France.

So...

Better get out of his way.

I don't get why they get to take it to France and we don't.

Wish they'd give us something to do.

HORN BLARES

Mind the bus, please!

Mind the big red thing!

Squishy squashy!

John's New Bus is meant to have made it to Victoria Station by now.

It's great. I like the new one.

It's not here today, but the new 38 is lovely.

Yes, I was on one the other day, actually.

They were a bit throwback. They were quite nice.

I was disappointed I didn't get on the back.

I thought they were good.

I love it. If there's one in the queue, I tend to wait for it,

because it's a nice journey.

-INTERVIEWER:

-How long would you be prepared to wait?

-Well, we've missed one at five to.

-We've been waiting half an hour now.

Because there's two less running at the moment.

But we'll wait, because we made the effort to come.

That's ours.

We'll be going out in a couple of minutes.

How long have you waited today?

Half eight till half two.

Just over six hours, so...

Six and a half hours, it will be.

It's a long time to wait for a bus.

John is finally under way.

ANNOUNCER: '38 to Hackney Central.'

Papers for the passengers.

DOOR BEEPS

I do all the work. See how strenuous that is?!

What's happening now, people hopping on, hopping off

because they're at the lights.

That makes it now.

A lot of people that we speak to prefer a conductor on the back.

Probably about 90 percent.

I suppose I'm quite traditional.

I personally like to go into a bank and I like to have a conductor,

because I think it makes it more personal.

I also think it must be nice for the driver.

Having the conductor onboard makes things so much simpler and easier.

You can focus on the driving

while the conductor can deal with passengers.

You want this stop.

Go left at them traffic lights,

it's down on the left-hand side. All right?

People say "Good morning" to you, people say "Goodbye".

And they are more talkative.

Whereas, on other routes, when you're the driver only, depending on

the route you're doing...

..people don't even talk to you, don't even grunt.

BELL DINGS

'Watch out for traffic when leaving the bus.'

Watch out for traffic!

When you're leaving the bus!

Mind the bus, please! Mind the bus!

The New Bus has arrived at Victoria.

Soon, there will be 600 of them on London's streets.

We need a bus that, when you come to London, you can say,

"This is the London bus." And I think that's what it should be.

Whether that was the right bus or not, not my decision.

In 50 years' time, if we're still talking about it, then it's made it.

The Routemaster, we'll still talk about the original.

50 years' time, will we be talking about it?

Mind the bus, please!

The original Routemasters still have a place

in many drivers' hearts.

Today, new driver Christine is being allowed to test drive

one of the iconic old buses,

following in the footsteps of her late father.

It will be like a dream come true to get in one and drive one,

what he used to drive.

I feel like I'm sitting there for him, sort of thing.

Got your handbrake off?

ENGINE REVS

Oh, bloody hell!

That's well hard!

Put your foot on the brake.

Here we go!

-That's brilliant.

-Done it now, ain't you?

Yeah, I have. It's good.

Sort of like, as I've come round,

I was trying to hold the tears back, which I did.

It's just the job my dad used to have, driving one of them.

It was a love for him. So...

Sorry.

Just to like do something that he did...

..and experience it,

sit where he sat

and experience what he told me about,

just is a great thing.

Makes me feel close.

Hold on tight.

So many people work on these buses all the years.

So many people come and gone and the bus is still around.

I just love driving buses!

You know, behind the wheel, it's great!

Good morning. Do us a kindness, please.

Could you just hold for a couple of minutes at your next stop?

It is nice when somebody goes, "Thanks, driver."

It really makes your day.

-Bye-bye.

-See you!

-Thanks!

The job hasn't got the same character. It hasn't.

Times change. You've got to change with it.

It's what you make it.

My father said to me,

"If you find a job you enjoy doing, you'll be happy all your life.

"If you end up doing a job you hate, you'll never be happy."

And that's right.

It's a good job now.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd