Bus garage
Encyclopedia
A bus garage or bus depot is a building where buses
Bus
A bus is a road vehicle designed to carry passengers. Buses can have a capacity as high as 300 passengers. The most common type of bus is the single-decker bus, with larger loads carried by double-decker buses and articulated buses, and smaller loads carried by midibuses and minibuses; coaches are...

 are stored and maintained. In many conurbations, bus garages are on the site of former car barns or tram sheds, where Streetcars
Tram
A tram is a passenger rail vehicle which runs on tracks along public urban streets and also sometimes on separate rights of way. It may also run between cities and/or towns , and/or partially grade separated even in the cities...

 or Tram
Tram
A tram is a passenger rail vehicle which runs on tracks along public urban streets and also sometimes on separate rights of way. It may also run between cities and/or towns , and/or partially grade separated even in the cities...

s were stored, and the operation transferred to buses. In other areas, garages were built to replace horse-bus yards or on virgin sites when populations were not as high as now.

Most bus garages will contain the following elements:
  • Internal parking
  • External parking
  • Fueling point
  • Fuel storage tanks
  • Engineering section
  • Inspection pits
  • Bus wash
  • Brake test lane
  • Staff canteen/break room

Smaller garages may contain the minimum engineering facilities, restricted to light servicing capabilities only. Garages may also contain recovery vehicles, often converted buses, although their incidence has declined with the use of contractors to recover break-downs, and the increase in reliability.

Overnight, the more valuable or regularly in-service buses will usually be stored in the interior of the garage, with less used or older service vehicles, and vehicles withdrawn for storage or awaiting disposal, stored externally. During the day, internal and external areas will see a variety of movements. Heritage vehicles are almost exclusively stored inside the garage.

Often garages will feature rest rooms for drivers assigned to 'as required' duties, whereby they may be required to drive relief or replacement buses in the event of breakdown. The garage may also have 'light duties' drivers, who merely move the buses internally around the garage, often called shunting.

Several bus companies such as London Buses
London Buses
London Buses is the subsidiary of Transport for London that manages bus services within Greater London, UK. Buses are required to carry similar red colour schemes and conform to the same fare scheme...

 and Lothian Buses
Lothian Buses
Lothian Buses Plc is the only municipal bus company in Scotland and the largest provider of bus services in Edinburgh, Scotland. City of Edinburgh Council own 91.01% of the company with the remainder being owned by East Lothian and Midlothian councils. As well as serving Edinburgh, Lothian Buses...

 used to operate multiple storage garages around their operating area, supplemented by a central works facility. Central works have declined with increase in sub-contract engineering, and improvements in mechanical reliability of bus designs. Also, the practice of routine mid-life refurbishment of bus fleets has declined, which has resulted in generally shorter service lives.

Some bus companies also make use of outstations (or out-stations), as an additional bus storage facility. These are generally outdoor parking locations, where buses are stored overnight or between peaks, which are more conveniently located for operations, reducing dead mileage
Dead mileage
Dead mileage, dead running or dead heading, in public transport, describes a practice of non-revenue running, especially in bus transport.- Causes :...

. Incidents of vandalism and a general reduction in services has seen their decline in the UK.

Bus garages will generally have large areas unobstructed by supporting columns as well as high roofs, especially for storage of double-decker buses. Recently in London, the transfer of routes from double-decker operation to articulated buses
Articulated buses in the United Kingdom
Articulated buses were rarely used in the United Kingdom compared to other countries, until the turn of the millennium. This was historically due to the UK preference for the double-decker bus for use on high capacity routes. As of June 2006, there were over 500 articulated buses in the UK,...

has caused problems at some garages that were found to be too small to accommodate all the replacement buses, requiring splitting of allocations, or the building of new garages.
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