Passenger-Carrier Hours of Service Explained

Passenger-carrying drivers run on a separate set of hours-of-service rules from the freight drivers most guides are written for. If you drive a bus, a motorcoach, a charter, or any commercial motor vehicle designed to carry passengers, your limits live in 49 CFR 395.5, not the 49 CFR 395.3 rules that cover property-carrying trucks. This guide walks through each passenger rule in plain language, with the exact regulation cited so you can read the source, and points you to a free tool for each one.

The 10-hour driving limit (395.5(a)(1))

You may not drive more than 10 hours following 8 consecutive hours off duty. A property driver gets 11 hours; you get 10. The hour matters on a long charter day, so it is worth tracking your driving time separately from the rest of your on-duty work. Our 10/15-hour shift calculator does exactly that: it counts driving toward the 10-hour limit and flags the moment you would cross it.

The 15-hour on-duty limit (395.5(a)(2))

You may not drive after having been on duty 15 hours following 8 consecutive hours off duty. This is the rule most often misunderstood by drivers who cross over from freight, because it works differently from the property 14-hour rule. The property 14-hour rule is a window: it starts when you come on duty and runs continuously, so an off-duty break in the middle of your day still eats the window. The passenger 15-hour rule is an accumulation of on-duty time only. Off-duty and sleeper-berth time do not count against it. In practice that means a meal break or a layover between runs does not shorten your driving day the way it would for a truck driver. The shift calculator shows the 15-hour meter holding steady across an off-duty block, which is the clearest way to see the difference.

No 30-minute break

The 30-minute break in 49 CFR 395.3(a)(3)(ii) is a property-carrier rule. Passenger carriers have no equivalent, so there is no required half-hour stop after eight hours of driving. You are still bound by the 10-hour and 15-hour limits, but the break clock simply does not exist for you.

The 60/70-hour limits, with no 34-hour restart (395.5(b))

Over a longer horizon, you may not drive after 60 hours on duty in 7 consecutive days (if your carrier does not run every day) or 70 hours in 8 consecutive days (if it does). Those numbers match the property limits, but one crucial tool is missing: passenger carriers have no 34-hour restart. Property drivers can reset their weekly total to zero with 34 hours off under 49 CFR 395.3(c); 395.5 grants passenger carriers nothing of the kind. Your only way to recover 60/70-hour hours is the rolling recap, as old days drop out of the 7- or 8-day window. Because you cannot buy back a full clock, managing the rolling total is even more important. The 60/70-hour recap calculator projects your hours coming back day by day and never offers a restart shortcut, because there is not one.

The sleeper-berth split (395.1(g)(3))

If your vehicle has a sleeper berth, you can split your rest. Under 49 CFR 395.1(g)(3), you may accumulate the equivalent of 8 hours off duty by taking two periods in the sleeper berth, provided neither is shorter than 2 hours. Both halves must be berth time, each at least 2 hours, totalling at least 8. That is different arithmetic from the property split, which requires a 7-hour berth period and a total of 10. So 6/2, 5/3, and 4/4 are valid for you, while 5/2 (short of 8) and 7/1 (a 1-hour period) are not. The sleeper-berth split checker validates a pair against the passenger numbers.

Where these rules come from, and what is authoritative

Every number here is drawn from the Code of Federal Regulations: 49 CFR 395.5 for the driving, on-duty, and weekly limits, and 49 CFR 395.1(g)(3) for the sleeper-berth split. The tools on this site encode those rules so you can plan, but they are advisory planning aids, not compliance records. Your Electronic Logging Device and your carrier's records are the authoritative account of your hours. If you also drive property-carrying trucks, the freight rules live at bigrigmath.com. Use the right rule set for the vehicle you are in, and confirm every plan against your ELD before you drive.