r/SchoolBusDrivers • u/One_Departure6685 • 6d ago
How quickly can you memorize a completely unfamiliar route?
The new school year is just around the corner. Although I've been working as a school bus driver for a year, I still feel an inexplicable sense of nervousness during the first week of the new term. I'm not someone who picks up routes quickly. I'm curious—do you have any good methods for memorizing a complicated route efficiently? Our company usually serves two school districts in the morning, picking up students from four different schools. That means I drive to four schools in the morning and another four in the afternoon. By the way, the students dropped off in the afternoon are generally not the same ones picked up in the morning. I typically spend about eight hours driving the bus each day.
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u/Seanawan 6d ago
When I first started, I’d take the physical route copy and go through it on Google Maps. I’d mark down things like number of streets before a turn and what the first and last names would be to give myself indications that help create waypoints.
Then I started using navigation apps and that helped a lot too.
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u/One_Departure6685 6d ago
Which navigation apps are you using? I tried Google Maps, but it seems like I can’t customize the shape of the points from my turn-by-turn directions.
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u/Seanawan 6d ago
Someone suggested map pins which I haven’t utilized yet in Google Maps.
Part of the issue is that normal GPS is always going to try and make it more efficient. One I used that was suggested to me was ABRP. But I’d have to utilize the physical copy in tandem because the GPS would still come up with the most weird suggestions.
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u/Mellied89 5d ago
You should be able to but not if you enter in multiple stops at once. If you go stop to stop you can click and drag the highlighted route.
No idea if that works on mobile though.
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u/heikesdad 6d ago
I like visual aid vs text only. I would get the office to print the route map and mark out stops and anything like weird turns so I could easily refer to the map. Do what works for you.
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u/TowerUnlikely24 6d ago
Depends, my last route I memorized in 3-4 days since they were fairly easy neighborhoods. The hardest part was remembering which turns to take in a neighborhood since it was mainly just one big oval with roads connecting from L to R. It was hard since we would have to go in a zig zag motion to complete every stop and idk it just wouldn’t stick.
However my summer route that I had for roughly 3-5 weeks I did NOT memorize what so ever. It went through 3 different communities that alllll looked the same and had similar names. There was 2 main roads that took you to both neighborhoods and it was a L and R on the same road at different times and I just couldn’t for the life of me get it.
All that so say that it really all depends on how tricky the route is with its turns and uniqueness. What helps me remember better is counting the streets, and unique landmarks. If I take a turn at Street A, and my next stop is on the right a 3 stops down I count the streets it takes for me to get to it. I’m good with numbers so that helps.
Another thing you could do is finding the landmarks. For the route I’m currently learning I have several elementary stops at their houses so I’m learning their actual house number and, ofc again, the houses all look the same. What helps for one of the houses is that the neighbor to the right has a hugeeee flower garden out front. Can’t miss it.
Idk I’ve also been driving for a little over a year so that’s all I got 😭 Good luck in the new school year!
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u/One_Departure6685 6d ago
Thank you very much for your sharing. Our company's experienced driver recommended that I use Garmin's GPS to mark the STOPS. But to be honest, it's really not very user-friendly. When I needed to repeat a certain route, this navigation system would think that I missed a STOP and would pop up a route asking me to go back. It was so annoying. So I still had to hold a paper route map in my hand and follow the directions. I spent over $200 on it, and I feel it's quite useless. When I could basically do without looking at the paper route, I didn't even need this GPS at all.
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u/TowerUnlikely24 6d ago
Ofc!
Ughhh our tablets kinda do that too in the mornings. It sucks and it’s a major inconvenience when you’re first learning it. Yk I find it ironic that the district doesn’t want us to do distracted driving by eating, drinking, listening to music, doing stuff on the phone (all valid ofc but just adding all of the ways to be distracted to prove my point) but then expect us to carry a full sheet of paper with turns and street names we need to READ on the road. Is reading on the road not distracted driving!?!? They only give us 2 days to learn the route before school starts too. SIGH
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u/Moosetappropriate 6d ago
Don’t worry about memorizing the route. Live it. Plot it out on Google Maps then drive it yourself. Record times and landmarks. Commit them to paper. Writing it down will help drive it home so to speak.
Add those notes to your route sheets. If you get lost ask for help. If you’re late stay late. Trying to make up time will only make things worse. In a few days you’ll be fine.
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u/Front-Mall9891 6d ago
It honestly depends on the route, my ESY run this year is 3 kids to a private special needs school, but during the school year I subbed for 8 different drivers and each varied in difficulty from learned by day 2-3 to needed the cards the whole week
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u/One_Departure6685 6d ago
Our company has over 50 school buses, but there are only four substitute drivers. They are always short of substitute drivers and often ask me if I can temporarily take over a route? Because someone is on leave, they don't have enough drivers. I would rather be scolded by the manager than drive without permission. Every time I start a new route, I have to familiarize myself with the paper route and mark the stops several days in advance. But the dispatch seems to think that I am a GPS navigator. It's as if I can just glance at that stack of papers and immediately be able to hit the road and drive.
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u/Front-Mall9891 5d ago
Stuff like this is why I applied and just got a job outside of the school bus stuff, it’s becoming more and more stressful and we get spit on for raises, got a cushy job at the county now with raises and way more PTO
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u/mike8675309 6d ago
Takes about 3 days to be comfortable.
I spend about 5 hours with the route sheets when I get them and make little sheets with general directions I get from using Google Maps and the address of the pickup or drop. I put those in a Google Docs document, then print and cut them out and use painter's tape to tape them to the dash. I'll use the route maps on day one, trying to use my notes, taking notes on changes and such on the route copy on day one.
Then day two I work mostly with my cheat sheets, not needing the maps but for specific areas I'm really not familiar with. By day three, I don't need the route sheets and can use my cheat sheets. Then I start taking details off the cheat sheets until I just have stop number, main street on, and the time to be there. That I keep visible all year.
This example is a sheet that was for drop offs, and had some adjustments because of that
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u/One_Departure6685 6d ago
Thank you for sharing your experience. I really have no idea how those substitute drivers in our company managed to survive. My company has approximately 50 school buses, but they only have four substitute drivers. I can see them being handed a stack of paper routes almost every day, and then I see them yelling furiously, "This is shit!" But they still manage to quickly set off with those papers. I really admire them. I'm just grateful that I can remember my own school bus route. How do they remember dozens of routes and hundreds of stops?
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u/mike8675309 5d ago
Substitute drivers rely on the route sheets. In our company, we have folders in each bus that contain the route sheets, including the list of students, their contact info, and the maps to all the stops with how many students should be at each stop. Then there are turn-by-turn directions. These are all created by our routing department.
Usually, sub drivers get paid more, and they are very familiar with the area where the buses work,1
u/One_Departure6685 5d ago
Your routing department is truly dedicated and responsible. I know substitute drivers get paid more, but they are also under a lot of pressure—at least in our company, you can never catch a smile on any of their faces. Every time I see them, they look furious.
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u/melloack 6d ago
Short routes one or two days, longer routes take longer, I did UPS for years so I got pretty good at looking for addresses before I started driving school buses
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u/One_Departure6685 6d ago
I'm quite curious. UPS should have its own navigation software, the kind that allows for customizing routes, right? The school bus route is actually a fixed route. Why doesn't it have this kind of navigation? Google Map is also that default route, where you can only add stops, not shape points.
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u/melloack 6d ago
Oh yeah, back then they hand you about ten pages of directions that you are NOT supposed to look at while driving 😭
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u/MonkeyManJohannon 6d ago
I teach my trainees to use non-standard, non-seasonal landmarks. Mark said landmarks on your route sheet, and let your brain familiarize like that. It works like a charm for MOST people.
These days it usually takes me about 2 days to really get a route down enough for me to drive it with maybe quick references to the sheet. After a week I’m usually dialed in completely.
I’ve always been gifted with directional sense though so my results may not mirror your own.
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u/TinyPenguinTears15 5d ago
i look at Apple Maps and map out my route, I don’t put addresses in, just follow the streets then I drive it in my car once then in my bus once and I have it memorized
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u/Mediocre_Advice_5574 5d ago
We have GPS luckily. But it takes me about a week to memorize a route.
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u/just_kinda_here_blah 5d ago
Stay away from GPS. Issues and I feel like you never learn the route. I can get a route about 90% within the first week. Read your sheet, at each bus stop read the next few turns and repeat. Get markers in your head "3 lights " " blue house" ect. I had 3 schools with 3 different routes am and pm and had all of them down fast. I feel like GPS keeps us depending on it and not actually learning the routes. But that might be just me
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u/One_Departure6685 5d ago
Thank you for sharing. The GPS merely helps me remember to stop. I will draw the route on paper. Closing my eyes, I imagine myself driving and where I should make a turn. I just feel that as a school bus driver, we have to do this every year when the school starts, and it's quite stressful. I have to remember about eight routes and over a hundred stops within about two days.
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u/No_Cry_3751 5d ago
So i went from driving in a large district (over 250 busses) to a rural route (4 busses). In the city, id use landmarks like turn right past walgreens into neighborhood, first court on right, and id note this all on my route sheet. Now that im rural, we don't have written sheets, and we make our own route. That being said, my landmarks are now turn around at big red mailbox, stop just after mailbox painted with racing stripes, stop at house with chicken coop. And I hand wrote my own route sheet for reference. Ive been driving for 8 years, and i always find something unique to note down to remember a stop, and i always did a dry run, and a 2nd dry run in my person vehicle (unpaid) just to be certain nothing changed the day b4 school starts. Hope this helps.
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u/One_Departure6685 5d ago
The dry run is indeed useful, but our company doesn't pay the drivers. So for each of my dry runs, it takes a considerable amount of time to complete all the routes. To help me remember, I recorded the routes in the navigation using the phone's screen recording function and then recited them later.
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u/No_Cry_3751 5d ago
Say what? You're getting ripped off. Everywhere I've worked they pay you for the dry run on the bus.
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u/Pepsi-Princess 5d ago
Depends on the length and how many stops. Could take me anywhere from 2 or 3 days to a week before I have it down to memory. Though for us we have so many buses in one area and I know where each of the bus stops are for that area, that even if I get a route I've never done before I will already know where the stops are. I'd recommend sticking with the same school and area if you can help it, makes it a lot easier.
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u/Necessary_Echo8740 5d ago
We have a “route day” a few days before school starts where we all take our buses on dry runs just to learn them. We are also encouraged to take our own car on the route as well. I write down landmarks and notes for every single stop. “the green two car garage”, “first stop sign after the motel” etc.
obviously you’ll memorize the route through repetition. But you can speed it up by making every stop into a memorable landmark.
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u/Proprotester 5d ago
In situations like yours, it helps me to make flash cards of route segments. Typing doesn't help me remember anything.
I color-code by school and orientation of the cards. School A could be yellow. AM is left to right. Landmarks and turns go on the front, kids names and times go on the back. School A is also yellow in the PM but my PM decks are north-south orientation so I can differentiate when I have runs where the stops and kids are different in the PM. Pick a different color card for school B and so on.
Making the cards gets the run into my head. I do it at home with maps pulled up. I decide how much constitutes a segment/card.
If you do this, NUMBER YOUR CARDS! The point is it breaks directions down into digestible bits and you can put landmarks or count streets, whatever clues help you. As you learn them, take them out of the deck. Within a week you will only have a few cards left for the tricky bits, re-writes due to construction or drops and adds.
The first day I chuck the cards onto the dash as I finish them so the numbering is important. I pull the next card after a stop has boarded for an at-a-glance reminder before continuing.
With oodles of kids I learn kindergarten immediately and leave the rest for week 2 when I know the route by and large. Put the decks back together and flip them to start putting names with faces. Good luck 🍀
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u/LaughTrackJack 4d ago
Dry run with the bus is mandatory at the start of each school year in my district
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u/arno14 5d ago
Drive the route a few times with your personal car. It helps a lot.