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'Driving a bus is easier than driving a car'

Sophie Lawin Drayton, Portsmouth
News imageBBC A woman is smiling into the camera. She has blonde hair and is wearing a hi vis orange jacket over a dark blue short sleeved top. She has a lanyard and work identification badge pinned to her chest. She is standing in front of a blue Stagecoach bus.BBC
Carol Sim, Stagecoach's operations director in the South, started out behind the wheel and rose through the ranks

How would you feel about swapping your 4m (13ft) long car for a bus nearly three times as long and towering above the traffic?

At a Stagecoach open day in Portsmouth attended by the BBC, those who have already made the switch said it can actually be easier than you might think.

And the company is hoping more women in particular will discover that for themselves, with the latest industry figures suggesting females account for only about 10% of bus drivers.

Stagecoach said bus driving could be the start of a career in engineering, operations or even management.

That was the case for Carol Sim, who started her career at the company behind the wheel and is now an operations director.

"I still love driving a bus, I still do it now - it's actually easier than driving a car because you're higher up, you can see a lot more," she said.

"Women are the minority in our industry - we'd like to see more."

News imageTwo single deckeer buses dominate the image. There is a red and white bus on the right, and a red bus parked further back on the left. They are training buses with writing saying Driver training vehicle on the side of the red and white bus. Both are displaying multiple 'L' plates. They are parked on a concrete surface with more buses in the background. There is a cloudy blue sky.
Those attending the open day were able to have a go at driving a bus

Plenty of women turned up to give bus driving a try at the open day in Drayton.

Sophie Miles was one of them, telling the BBC she had only passed her car driving test in May this year.

"I thought, I can drive a little car - can I drive a bus? It was really fun, I felt like I was floating," she said.

"It was more natural than I thought, I was worried it was going to be really nerve wracking... It's definitely made me more confident about [applying]."

Others, like student Sal - who has just finished a master's degree - were taking any opportunity to get into employment.

"The job market is so confusing at the moment and I'm spending all day applying for jobs left, right and centre," she said.

"I've already applied for a bus driving apprenticeship just as a little buffer or a career break, just while I work out what I want to end up doing and make sure the job market is nice and settled."

She added: "It was like driving a go kart but massive, so fun. It was so much easier than I thought it would be."

Another attendee, Davina, said she was inspired to give it a go by her family's connections to the industry.

"My mum's been with Stagecoach 25 years. My half-brother is a bus driver, my boyfriend was, it's something to try - especially because my mum absolutely loves it. So I wanted to see if it's worth the hype."

For many who attended, the day offered not just a chance to drive a bus, but to consider a career they had never previously imagined for themselves. For some, it may yet prove to be the first step on that journey.

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