All change: the loneliness of the Covid-era bus driver
Before the pandemic hit, Patrick Lawson could always be spotted smiling away while driving the number 26 bus from Hackney Wick to Waterloo. Once passengers climbed on board, he would sing out “good morning and welcome aboard!” to each and every one that tapped onto his bus. Once the journey was underway, he would speak into the overhead tannoy and announce: “This number 26 bus is to Waterloo! Thank you for travelling via Transport for London. My name is Patrick and I just want to take this opportunity to wish you a very good journey. Please make sure to take all of your personal belongings with you.”
It is no surprise then that Patrick was nominated by his passengers for TfL’s Hello London Award for Outstanding Customer Service in 2018, and voted London’s happiest bus driver. Then came the pandemic. An essential part of Patrick’s job was no more as there is little point in smiling or singing over the tannoy to an empty bus.
This has been the story of drivers all across the country over the last year – sitting behind the wheel all dressed up with no one to drive.
“The first lockdown was like a ghost town,” says Patrick, who had been driving passengers on the number 26 for three years. TfL confirmed that “ridership decreased to 40 per cent from normal demand and has remained lower throughout the course of the pandemic”. Despite fewer passengers, TfL has been “running as close to a normal service as possible”, so as to allow passengers “travelling for legally permitted reasons to social distance” as buses’ maximum capacity has been reduced.
For Patrick, who sees a “happy bus as a full bus”, driving became a sad experience. “I find myself giving announcements to an empty bus,” he says, because sometimes, despite the camera, he cannot always tell if he has a passenger who may be lurking on the top tier of the double decker. As he often had to coax what travellers there were upstairs to adhere to social distancing, this never seemed likely. But it hasn’t stopped him. Even if his welcome message is heard by one lone passenger it is worth it as he tries to “take their mind off what is going on”. One London agency bus driver, gesturing around an empty parked bus, also said that often their buses would carry a handful of passengers or simply none at all.
Masks have made the relationship between driver and passenger more awkward. When a passenger does walk through Patrick’s doors, he “cannot see their face” and his award-winning customer service skills are put to the test. Not one to fall at the first hurdle, he still smiles and says good morning, but “some of my customers just stare at me,” he explains.
“The only time the bus had passengers was the rush hour time period where we were carrying key workers,” he says. In between these slots he often found himself making trips with no passengers. “This third lockdown is far worse,” he says.
Sadly, bus drivers are on the front line, and many have been taken ill. Ten companies, including Patrick’s employer, HCT Group, which supplies buses for 17 of London’s bus routes, provided TfL with around 25,000 bus drivers at the time the pandemic started. A report by the UCL Institute of Health Equity, commissioned by TfL, found that 29 of these drivers died between March and May 2020 with a mortality rate for male bus drivers in London between the ages of 20 to 64, three and a half times higher than the national average for men in that age bracket. Outside the capital, 53 bus and coach drivers in England and Wales died of coronavirus in the same period. A recent investigation by LBC found that 60 London bus drivers have now died with Covid.
The same London agency driver recalled how in his previous company he knew of “three that had died within one month.” Patrick said that a fellow bus driver “came back from being sick yesterday.” With friends’ and colleagues’ lives being taken by the virus, when he saw him he couldn’t help but break into song and dance. Patrick’s worry, as his colleague was the only patient who was conscious in his hospital ward, was “is this man going to die?”
In the midst of pandemic gloom last year, Patrick chose to take on other projects and only work on the buses part time. But he will soon be returning to driving his beloved double decker. This means he could be driving any number of routes – from the 394 to the 308 – going wherever he is instructed. This variety helps to break up the monotony of quieter trips, but the 394 is a single-tiered bus which drives like a “playful dog”. He finds his old faithful – the number 26 – drives with “more ease and maturity”. “I will do all I can to help fellow drivers and the company,” he says.
Whether it’s the 2pm shift or the 4am, London’s bus drivers have kept moving around the capital, even when the city slept. Pandemic or no pandemic, passengers or not, the wheels on the bus are always going round and round.