A report by public transport planning platform Optibus has revealed the significant impact that factors such as work scheduling and overtime can have on driver retention.
The 2026 State of Bus Driver Retention in Public Transport, which is based on a multinational survey of 400 full-time bus drivers, researched how addressing issues like schedule predictability and communication may help fix the staff-retention problem facing the industry.
After hearing feedback from staff in the UK, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, United States and Canada, the report’s authors promote a “human-centric” duty design.
The report says job satisfaction drops from 66% to 35% when drivers exceed five overtime shifts per month and that they are six times more likely to stay in a job when scheduling processes feel fair. The survey found 67% of drivers say their leading frustration is split shifts.
It also found schedule predictability is linked to a doubling in job satisfaction and that improvement from “poor” to “good” dispatch communication boosts retention by 15 percentage points to 80%.
Contradicting common assumptions regarding technology, it found that veteran drivers with more than 15 years’ experience showed the highest demand for self-service apps.
The Optibus report suggests managers should space out shifts with adequate recovery time and try to improve driver input during schedule creation. Transparency in shift distribution and advance visibility of schedules is also encouraged.
To solve the communication problem, operators should work on ways to push service changes without delay and move beyond radio-only contact methods, says Optibus.
The report suggested the UK ranks third best out of the nine countries surveyed when it comes to the percentage of drivers (34.2%) working overtime more than six times per month – identified as being the threshold for problematic frequency.
The report recommends monitoring cumulative working time to spot patterns early, watching for shift sequences that create exhaustion risk, and protecting rest periods between shifts, especially after long hours.
