Transport User Voice November 2025 – What makes a great bus driver?

27 November 2025

Your Bus Journey insight

The 2025 UK Bus Awards were held in London on Tuesday 25 November celebrating excellence within the bus industry and recognising the remarkable people that work within it.  

The awards highlight the best in the business across more than 20 categories, including Top London and National Bus Driver. Senior Engagement Manager, David Beer took part in the judging process of nine categories over the summer and attended the ceremony. Speaking on the event, David said:  

“At a time when we want to attract more people to using buses, this is a tribute to the hard work being put in by bus operators and partnerships with authorities across the country. From investment initiatives and community engagement to the engineers, managers and bus drivers delivering daily services. It is a real privilege to be part of the celebrations for such a wealth of achievement, on behalf of the passengers they serve.”

At Transport Focus, we know just how influential bus drivers are to a positive journey. A friendly, helpful driver can go a long way for passengers. 

In fact, the attitude of the bus driver is one of the key contributing elements to overall journey satisfaction according to our Your Bus Journey survey. As part of our 2024 results, bus operator trentbarton’s drivers scored 94 per cent satisfaction so we spent the day at its depot in Langley Mill to find out what a great bus driver means to them. 

Over the course of the day, we spoke to one of its drivers, an instructor, a trainee and senior management who all spoke passionately about their organisational culture and the trentbarton way of doing things. Giving a warm greeting to each passenger, placing tickets and change directly in their hands and having a positive and helpful attitude are just some of the things trentbarton drivers pride themselves on. 

This ethos plays a big part in its recruitment and training processes.  

Once trainees have completed their formal training and are qualified to go out on the road, they then report to trentbarton’s Finishing School where they are able to go through their final preparations before they go to depot. This gives new drivers a chance to work through the practical scenarios that they will later encounter such as ticket machine training, managing different types of traffic, interacting with customers and more.  

A great bus driver can mean a positive journey experience for passengers.  

Tom Bridge, Operations Director at trentbarton, spoke to us about the importance of driver culture and the support trainee drivers receive before they get out on the road. 

You can check out what Tom had to say by clicking here.