Toilets In Motion — Bus Toilets

Greece

KTEL, the national bus company in Greece, has some buses with on-board toilets.

Most of the on-board bus toilets I have seen are at the right rear, replacing maybe two rows of seats. The Greek ones, however, are down in the center stairwell. They look like they would be awfully small.

I don't know, and I can't put the blue Sani-Flush border around this picture, because they seem to routinely be locked shut.

Yes, they have toilets. But you can't use them.

Turkey

If you're moving about Turkey, it's probably by bus. Which means you'll eventually need to find the tuvalet when you're at an otogar. An actual Turkish otogarlu tuvalet can get pretty disgusting, even by Internet standards. So here is just the indication of one. See the sign?

United Kingdom

National Express buses in the U.K. also have on-board toilets. This is from an overnight bus from Edinburgh to London (about 7 hours).

They are not as nasty as American Greyhound on-board toilets. A flap seals off the holding tank.

Also notice the sign —
Do not even attempt to pee standing!
That also helps to keep things clean.

Citylink buses connect cities and towns within Scotland. As bus toilets go, these are the nicest that I have encountered. They are constructed about like aircraft toilets, and they are very clean.

Below is a picture of a Citylink bus passing through Pitlochry, Scotland on the route from Edinburgh to Inverness.

United States

Yes, Greyhound buses in the U.S. have on-board toilets. They have a holding tank with the traditional blue juice. I was surprised to see that the design is just a straight drop down a wide shaft into the tank. I would think that the toilet could get awfully smelly on a long hot trip. There is a small air vent directly to the exterior just to the right of your head if you were sitting on the seat.

The toilet compartment occupies the right half of what would be a full-width rear bench seat and what would be the pair of seats just in front of that on the right side of the aisle.

Note to self — do not sit in the back two rows of a Greyhound bus, where the door to the toilet is directly across the aisle.

The above is from a Greyhound bus between Lafayette, Indiana and Chicago.

Megabus, one of Greyhound's competitors, connects major cities with luxury buses that you can board without venturing into the always dicey Greyhound terminal.

Really, Greyhound's market seems partially based on brand loyalty based on fond memories of rides home from prison.

Anyway, the buses are quite nice, and they include an on-board lavatory. But as you see here, they're very similar to the Greyhound ones.

There are only so many things you can do with the design of a long-haul bus toilet.

This example is from a bus from Washington DC to New York.

Rose George's The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters is a fascinating description of sanitation conditions around the world. "2.6 billion people don't have sanitation. [....] Four in ten people have no access to any latrine, toilet, bucket, or box. [....] Poor sanitation, bad hygiene, and unsafe water — usually unsafe because it has fecal particles in it — cause one in ten of the world's illnesses. [....] Diarrhea — nearly 90 percent of which is caused by fecally contaminated food or water — kills a child every fifteen seconds. The number of children who have died from diarrhea in the last decade [1998-2008] exceeds the total number of people killed by armed conflict since the Second World War.

In September 2009, Morna Gregory and Sian James published a book titled Toilets of the World. It's pretty much the same theme that you find here — photographs and commentary on other people's plumbing.

The Porcelain God: A Social History of the Toilet, by Julie Horan, contends that civilization began with the toilet.

Toilet: Public Restrooms and the Politics of Sharing, edited by Laura Noren and Harvey Molotch, has essays by anthropologists, sociologists, and architects on the importance of the toilet, especially for urban dwellers.

Latrinae Et Foricae: Toilets in the Roman World describes the toilets of the Roman Empire from Iberia to Syria, and from North Africa to Hadrian's Wall in Britannia.

Toilets, Bathtubs, Sinks, and Sewers: A History of the Bathroom, explains the history of personal cleanliness and hygiene to children in grades 5-8.

If you're not bored yet, you might be interested in (or at least tolerate):

• Travel suggestions
• To Bob's main site