Good Parking Spaces
Why do commercial charter buses keep their engines running for hours in parking lots?
I've noticed that charter buses keep their engines running for up to an entire day while their groups are out doing things. I work at an aquarium, and I've witnessed a bus sit, running, in the parking lot from 6:45am when the group checked in until after 6pm when the group left. As someone who is conscious about carbon emissions, it irks me to have a bus spewing diesel in our own parking lot! Is there a good excuse to keep the engine running or is it simply that the driver wants the air-conditioning on? One thing that I'll add is that groups who are housed at the aquarium for extended periods of time (several days) always give a room to the bus driver. Therefore, the driver doesn't have to sit in the bus if he or she doesn't want to. In addition, drivers are welcome to accompany groups into the aquarium free of charge.
Public Comments
- I would assume that it is the driver wanting A/C. Also, if some members of the charter group decided to go wait on the bus or the group leaves unexpectedly, it is ready to go. will the tour take an hour? 2? The driver could be watching tv, a/c on,with the bus running. But this is my own opinion. My dad was a truck driver, we left the engine idling a lot for heat or a/c
- It's mostly that the driver wants the air conditioning on. Several states have passed laws that make it illegal for vehicles to sit and idle for long periods. (In California, it's no more than five minutes.) In other places, individual companies and property owners have posted their parking lots as 'NO IDLE ZONES.' A heavy diesel engine can burn a gallon of diesel fuel per hour just sitting and idling. That's a lot of wasted fuel, and a lot of unnecessary exhaust fumes, but it's not all the driver's fault... He's got to sit with his vehicle and wait for his tour group, in all sorts of weather conditions, from freezing cold to blazing hot. Perhaps if your facility gets a lot of tour buses, than it would help if you provided a driver's lounge where a driver could go to wait in relative comfort instead of sitting in his bus and pumping out more carbon emissions just to stay warm.
- Diesel is very hard to start in the winter and summer, so you have to keep the glow plugs warm in them.
