Standing Room Only?

On the way back from the Baptist Assembly, being a bank holiday there were, of course, engineering works on the railway. So we had to get a bus for part of the journey. I must say it worked very well and (believe it or not!) we got to Brentwood station the same time we would have, had we caught the train all the way.

As we were sitting on the bus, I was idly reading the notice saying how many people the bus can carry. Well, you've got to do something on you way to Romford Station! It said something like this (I might not have it exactly correct):

Upper deck seated 37

Lower deck seated 29

Standing 10

Or 1 wheelchair and 25 seated

It took most of the journey to work out what it was saying. It should have been written:

Upper deck seated 37
Lower deck seated 29

or 1 wheelchair and 25 seated
Standing 10

In other words the wheelchair took up 4 seats (which flipped up).

This has now become a kind of hobby. The number 73 bus I was on recently mentioned "Standees"!

Now if an employer employs people and an employee is employed, then clearly a standee is stood! But then that fits in well with the new common parlance where people say they were "sat sitting". If you're a "standee" you are obviously "stood standing"!

If there are people standing on your next bus , go up to one and tell them they are a standee! On second thoughts you probably ought not, as one of the others who are stood standing will probably nick your seat!

This whole business of bus capacity is a complicated science! Take, for instance, this excerpt from a paper on the whole subject of school buses in America:

School buses transport passengers in a wide range sizes (height and weight). Accordingly, it is not possible to define the absolute capacity of a school bus under all conditions. The typical school bus seat is 39 inches wide and generally is considered to have a maximum seating capacity of three. This capacity rating is not meant to be a measure of the absolute capacity of the school bus seat for all sizes of passengers. Rather, it is the “rated maximum capacity” as determined by the school bus body manufacturer and specified on the vehicle. This rated capacity is determined by dividing the width of the seat by the number “13,” which represents the 12.8-inch hip breadth of a 5th percentile adult female test dummy as specified in Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 208, “Occupant Crash Protection.”

[A 5th percentile adult female dummy is approximately 4-feet 11-inches tall and weighs 102
pounds.]

So there you are, now you know! But with childhood obesity on the increase maybe the number 13 will have to go up!