On Mon, 18 Sep 2017 19:57:45 +0200, Jarle Hammen Knudsen
wrote:

On Mon, 18 Sep 2017 09:52:14 -0700 (PDT), Offramp
wrote:

I think I use the 655 more often than the school children.

So non-school people can use school buses in London?

When we lived in Berkshire my sons went to school on a private
charter. Here in Somerset I think all the local secondary schools
run school buses which are usually (but not exclusively) hand me down
coaches provided by local coach companies and most don't appear in
public timetables. There is one route from a sixth form college
which does appear in the timetable and I phoned the operator once to
ask if it was open to use by non-pupils (by the time I wanted to get
on it would have dropped at least part of the load) and the person I
talked to didn't really know but guessed (!) I'd be OK. In the end I
used a different mode so I never found out!

The simple, but probably unsatisfactory, answer is "it varies". There
is no hard and fast rule.