Jonathan “JonJon” Junpradub sat behind the wheel, looking more awake than most of the passengers on his UCLA Campus Express bus.
It was a little after 7:30 a.m. on Thursday, and Junpradub had just pulled up to the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, the third stop along his northbound route .
As people boarded the bus, the fourth-year anthropology student smiled and greeted them. It was the start to a five-hour shift that would take him back-and-forth from Westwood Village to campus ““ a trip he drives in some capacity every weekday.
Junpradub is among three students who are employed as campus bus drivers by UCLA Transportation.
“Most people don’t know I’m a student,” Junpradub said. “They just think I’m a regular bus driver.”
He started working about six to seven months ago, after he and a friend started wondering if the job was open to students. Before that, he didn’t know the bus existed, let alone that it was free.
Transportation does not receive many student applications, said Sherry Lewis, director of UCLA Fleet and Transit. She attributed it to students’ lack of familiarity with public transportation.
They often do not know it is an option as a student job, even though hiring students as bus drivers is a common practice on college campuses nationwide, she said.
In the past two years, however, Transportation has been able to attract more students, she said. The job’s schedule flexibility is a draw, she added.
Navigating the bus between parked cars on North Campus, Junpradub said his driving has improved since he became a bus driver.
Diana Ulloa-Montes, a third-year Spanish and community and culture student, trained as a driver with Junpradub over the summer.
She drives for UCLA Transportation Tuesday through Friday.
After her first time driving the bus, she said her arms hurt, as if she had been riding a roller coaster. But now, Ulloa-Montes said her friends notice that she drives like she is in a bus ““ even when she is driving a regular car.
“I take wider turns than normal, like I’m in a bus,” she said. “I let cars pass by me in a lane, even though I fit fine.”
To become a bus driver, student drivers, like Junpradub and Ulloa-Montes, have to train for about two months.
They are required to have had a driver’s license for two years, receive a commercial driver’s license and pass a training program run by an outside agency UCLA Transportation contracts, Lewis said. Drivers also cannot have any driving infractions, she said.
While Junpradub has gotten accustomed to the size of the bus, he said there are other pressures that come along with driving.
“(Car) doors are your worst enemy,” Junpradub said. “As a bus driver, you get more aware of the little things.”
Traffic is by the far the worst part of driving, he said.
“You have 40 people wanting to go home, and you are stuck in traffic,” he said. “They are upset, and you want to calm them down, but it is out of your control.”
When Junpradub can delay the schedule for a few seconds, though, he will wait for a student running to catch the bus.
At a stop at Weyburn Terrace, Junpradub re-opened the doors for a student who nearly missed the Campus Express.
“Thank you so much,” she said, breathlessly.
“Not a problem,” Junpradub said, and pulled out of the stop.
The types of people he meets while driving, including students, faculty and visitors to the campus, make the seemingly repetitive routes more exciting, he said.
“The best part is being able to talk to them, to see where they are going, and getting them to where they need to go,” he said.
He said he likes to think he is a student doing a service for other students. And in the process, he gets to talk and know them.
Shalini Krishnasamy, a first-year medical student, rode the bus Thursday to make it to an anatomy lab on time. While she hadn’t ridden the bus in a while, she remembered Junpradub from past rides.
She said she appreciated his friendliness.
The Wilshire route, which shuttles people from south of Wilshire Boulevard to campus, is Junpradub’s preferred route because it is mostly made up of students.
“Sometimes you get a lot of students who talk, and then it becomes a party on the bus,” Junpradub said.
Yet it was relatively silent Thursday morning, as he traveled up Charles E. Young Drive toward campus. He seemed content driving in silence ““ but still had no problem breaking the peace to say goodbye to departing passengers.