I don't drive. I used to. i decided against it when my depth perception started to go on me. Plus health reasons that would make it a bad choice. Once i get my operation, IF i get it, I'll look into driving during the days again. As long as it doesn't rain.
I saw people doing the job you do on the buses I used to take. They sat behind the driver and hit this little hand held gadget to keep count of who boarded , noting locations on a clipboard.

I understand your frustration over transit cuts. In the city I lived in there was this mentality that you were a low life if you took the city bus. This is due to the fact a lot of the homeless mentally ill people would get free bus passes and just ride around the city all day. The bizarre behavior some of them exhibited scared the people who used the buses to commute to and from work. So, to keep that element out of the more upper scale areas of the city, they cut services. Which ended up screwing a lot of the workers that needed it to get to jobs in that area.