Open Platform

A QUESTION OF USE

COACH AND BUS WEEK ending: Octover 10 2002  p.24 emap.plc
What is a coach?
Last week we highlighted the legislative changes in the pipline that will affect coach and bus operation. Well known industry consultant, Bob Pilbeam, is prompted to ask a fundimental question...
In my capacity as a London Blue Badge Guide the following example of a conversation is not unusual:

American Tourist talking to smartly-dressed man standing by coach door: "Excuse me, are you our bus driver?"

Smartly-dressed man: "No madam, I'm your coach driver."

The driver is not being pedantic, he genuinely has a pride in the fact he is a coach driver and not a bus driver.

Now I am not going to get into the argument of whether this is misplaced pride but it does highlight the general view that a coach is different to a bus even if they look the same.

Later in the day when arriving at, for example, Bath, the driver or guide will explain that, if the passengers get lost, they must ask directions to the Coach Park and not the Bus Park as that is a different kind of vehicle at a different location.

So what is a bus? Well, I was speaking to a director of a wellknown bus company who is responsible for the local city bus station.

He said to me: "There is no room for coaches to set down and pick up in this bus station except for National Express coaches." Is the National Express vehicle a coach or a long-distance bus?

The Road Vehicles (Construction & Use) (Amendment) (No 2) regulations 1987 define the words coach and large bus as: 'Coach' means a large bus with a maximum gross weight of more than 7.5 tonnes and with a maximum speed exceeding 60 mph. So, on this ruling the National Express vehicle is a coach. Yet 'large bus' means a vehicle constructed or adapted to carry more than 16 seated passengers in addition to the driver. So, on this ruling all coaches are buses.

However, that is most confusing as all PCVs are licensed as buses and can use bus lanes unless additional limitations are sign-posted such as 'Local Service Only'. So, if you followed this definition, there is no difference between a bus and a coach - they are all buses.

When I speak to politicians at both national and local level and ask what are they doing for coaches they will

go in to great depths and tell you that coaches are very important and that they are always promoting coach travel such as National Express Green Line and Commuter Coaches. May I remind them that they may look like a coach but they are running to a timetable, have regular stops and charge individual fairs. So, in my definition, they are buses that look like coaches.

So I have nearly answered my own question. A bus runs to a timetable, normally has regular stops, charges individual fairs according to how far the person has travelled and the company gets fuel rebate for running the service. The coach, however, goes from one point to another with the same group and they all remain with the vehicle for the entire hiring.

A coach does not have allocated stops, does not have free stands for the driver to rest and he driver also has much stricter rules of conduct than the bus driver.

To support this argument you only have to look at school transport, where the local authority has a responsibility to get children from further afield to school. So, they call it

a school bus, give it a timetable so that it can be licensed and get fuel rebate and it does not then have to have seatbelts (cheaper). But, when he school decides to take a trip to he museum the headmaster and governors are responsible and it can't run to a timetable so does not get rebate. It is called a coach and has to have seatbelts.

victoria.jpg (14250 bytes)

Commuter service running to a time table - coach or bus?

However, you could say that a coach is a large taxi but much more efficient. If you take this argument to its end you would presume that coaches would have free areas to queue up (ranks) and to pick up their passengers like taxis have at Heathrow or any of the London Rail terminals.

Nevertheless, having explored the most up-to-date legislation, The Town Police Clauses Act of 1847 and The London Hackney Carriage Act of 1843, I have concluded that, to be a taxi, you have to ply for and be available for hire at the time of so doing. So coaches are not taxis.


By now I am so confused I think I will go to London on the commuter coach which, because it is running to a timetable, is a bus and then, when the driver has arrived in London, go on a tour with him and 40 Americans. The same vehicle is now a coach - that is, until he takes the commuters home in the evening when it will be a bus again.

By the way is a Coach Consultant allowed to talk about buses?

opentop.jpg (65334 bytes)

Open-top tourist service with or without guide - is this classed as a coach or a bus?