The people trying to make Auckland buses cool online

Coming from two generations of bus drivers, Aucklander Robert Richards wasn't always keen on following his father and grandfather's footsteps, but it has turned him into a social media influencer.

The 29-year-old, known as Robby, was convinced by his father to give it a go when his job in retail didn't work out.

Taking charge of the NX2 double decker, which runs between the CBD and Albany on the North Shore, Richards noticed there were social media fan accounts of particular bus routes – but none from a driver’s perspective.

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“I was very surprised and my imagination was kind of bubbling a bit, because I felt left out,” he told RNZ's First Up. “I'm like this is a big opportunity that I have to think about.”

With his passion for acting, Richards set up an Instagram account for his bus route and, in his first post in May last year, compared his life with Ryan Gosling’s character in the film Drive.

"One day later, Auckland Transport reposted it on their Instagram story and I was shocked,” Richards says.

"I was surprised. I felt like a kid who saw himself on TV because I was just going to post one silly video and then leave it alone.

"After that, it inspired me to make another video. And that video got a million views and I was hooked.”

Richards stopped driving buses in December and is now busy making more videos for his 7000 followers on Instagram. His latest project is a series of videos celebrating the beauty of every Auckland suburb, with a humorous edge.

“It's a lot of brainstorming, but also I will go on Instagram and I will look at all these other things in my niche and I will see what's working for them and then I will do it my way.”

Seeing Richards’ popularity and content caught the attention of 14-year-old George, who had created an Auckland Transport-themed game on the popular Roblox platform a few years ago.

Known as Hyper to his fanbase of more than 200,000 followers on TikTok, George creates videos based on games on Roblox. The online platform allows users to programme and play role-play and simulation games created by themselves or other users.

“A few years back when I started intermediate, we had to take a school bus. It would be different buses every day, like sometimes it'd be like an old bus, sometimes a new bus, sometimes a double decker and that inspired me to make a Roblox game, but I never really released it [until he saw Richards’ posts].”

In George’s game, players get a chance to experience a bus driver’s job, picking a route and taking a ride. To make it as realistic as possible, the teenager visited bus interchanges, took photos of details and designed route cards with the help of Richards.

George says more than 1600 people have played the game so far and he plans to keep developing it.

Another driver giving the public a glimpse into life as a bus driver is 44-year-old Max (YouJia) Jia, who took up the job after quitting from a bakery in 2023.

Originally from China, Jia has more than 1000 followers on Chinese social media, where he posts about the ups and downs of his job, including the joys of driving by the sunrise and early starts.

"[It’s] something weird, something dangerous, something exciting. And yeah, that attracts people a lot,” Jia says of his bus content, which he started posting in 2023.

Jiais believes his posts have inspired others to become Auckland bus drivers.

While Auckland Transport spent $66,000 on social media advertising last year, neither Richards nor Jiais received any of that funding.