Driver Hours

[enviro]

Can anyone inform me of or point me in the direction of rules and reg's that train drivers work under.

What's the max daily, weekly driving hours ect? What are the minimum rest or break periods ect?

Thanks

 

[notadriver]

Hidden rules apply.
13 days max in a row.
72 hours maximum in a week.
12 hour day max (must have 12 hours off)

Driving - 5h 30 continuous.

In practice passenger drivers don't get anywhere near those limits.

Are you a bus driver ?

 

[enviro]

Thanks for that, just what I was wanting to know.

No not a bus driver, in the bus industry with more of an interest in the planning side and wanted a simple understanding of the rail industry before I did a bit of work on something.

 

[Cherry_Picker]

Before the pedants jump in and point out that the Hidden report (named after Anthony Hidden by the way) is no longer legally binding and individual TOCs will have their own set of guidelines. Those guidelines can very between individual companies and individual depots within said companies, for example intensive suburban work will have slightly different limits to express/intercity work, the numbers listed above are a good ballpark figure.
I would like to add that there are also agreements of how breaks are taken, such as how long a break needs to be, the point within a shift that a break should happen (mostly to stop companies putting the break right at the start or right at the end of a shift) and even what facilities need to be made available to train crew during those breaks. They cant force a driver to eat his sandwiches in the cab during a 15 minute turn around for example.

 

[notadriver]

Thanks for that, just what I was wanting to know.

No not a bus driver, in the bus industry with more of an interest in the planning side and wanted a simple understanding of the rail industry before I did a bit of work on something.

I found this article very interesting.

http://www.engineering.leeds.ac.uk/computing/research/publications/theses/kwan_a.pdf

 

[pendolino]

It varies considerably from TOC to TOC, but here is an outline of what applies at my TOC:

• 35 hour week - but each week varies, 35 hours is an average. Many weeks are considerably more than 35hrs, others are less to balance out.
• Turns are between 6 hrs and 9h30, but the average is probably somewhere around 9h00. There is a requirement to work 30 minutes unpaid overtime at the end of duty to allow for late running, or to complete reports where required
• Each turn includes time for booking on, walking times, PNB, PC (prep circuits - key on/activate the cab), TC (trip circuits - key off), splitting and attaching, prep and disposal/berthing times as applicable
• PNBs are minimum of 30 minutes or 2 x 20mins but walking time to and from the PNB point and PC/TC times must be included either side of the PNB (we had some jobs with a minimum 30 minute PNB but the planners have realised that it only takes the train to run 2-3 minutes late and the driver will legitimately ask for the next part of his/her job to be covered by another driver, or tell control that his/her next working will run late, so adjustments have been made to most of the jobs like this that worked on paper but often didn't in practice)
• Taking all this into account, actual driving time probably amounts to 6h-6h30 in an 8h30 turn but it can vary considerably depending on the duty
• Maximum aggregate driving is 8hrs; maximum continuous driving time is 5hrs, or 4hrs if over the same route - 'continuous driving time' here doesn't mean the time the train is actually moving but includes station stops and turnarounds at termini if this is less than 10 minutes; maximum non-stop driving is 3hrs (I don't imagine we have any jobs that come anywhere near this because of the nature of our work/services)
• As Cherry Picker says, there are rules regarding when PNBs fall within the duty - it depends on the length of duty but to keep it simple, let's say that a PNB must not be within the first 2hrs of the duty