Dead mileage, dead running or dead heading, in public transport

Public transport

Public transport is a shared passenger transportation service which is available for use by the general public, as distinct from modes such as taxicab, car pooling or hired buses which are not shared by strangers without private arrangement.Public transport modes include buses, trolleybuses, trams...

, describes a practice of non-revenue

Revenue

In business, revenue is income that a company receives from its normal business activities, usually from the sale of goods and services to customers. In many countries, such as the United Kingdom, revenue is referred to as turnover....

 running, especially in bus

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...

 transport.

Causes

Dead mileage routinely occurs when a bus route starts or finishes in a location away from a bus garage

Bus garage

A bus garage or bus depot is a building where buses are stored and maintained. In many conurbations, bus garages are on the site of former car barns or tram sheds, where Streetcars or Trams were stored, and the operation transferred to buses...

 or out-station, and the start or end of a shift

Shift work

Shift work is an employment practice designed to make use of the 24 hours of the clock. The term "shift work" includes both long-term night shifts and work schedules in which employees change or rotate shifts....

 requires driving the bus to and from the garage out of service. Dead mileage can also occur in cases where shift-break parking has to be undertaken in terminals away from the service route.

Effects and prevention

Dead mileage incurs costs for the operator in terms of non-revenue earning fuel use, wages, and a reduction in the utilisation of the driver's legal hours of driving.

Operators will often reduce dead mileage by starting or finishing the first or last service of the day, or shift, at a garage along the route, a so-called part service or part route. Dead mileage may also be reduced by the operation of routes specifically timed and routed to facilitate bus movements rather than passenger need.

Dead mileage has increasingly become an issue with privatised competition for bus services, most notable with the privatisation of London bus services

Privatisation of London bus services

The privatisation of London bus services was the progressive process of the transfer of operation of London Buses from public bodies to private companies....

, where competing operators have to factor on the cost of dead mileage when bidding for specific routes away from their main garages. This is exacerbated by not being allowed to operate a service that may match the dead mileage route. This can be lessened to an extent by tendering routes in groups of sufficient size to justify opening/renting new garage space.

Often operators will come to an arrangement to share garage facilities to reduce dead mileage.