For the chocolate bar, see Double Decker (chocolate bar)

Double-decker buses are taller than other buses. They are extensively used in the United Kingdom, where perhaps the most famous was the London Routemaster, removed from normal service in December 2005 - they still operate on heritage routes. Elsewhere in Europe, double-deckers are used throughout the Dublin Bus network and some Bus Éireann routes in Ireland, where they are making a comeback on Dublin's outer suburban routes (e.g. Dublin-Navan) and also the streets of Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford. They are a common sight in Berlin, where the BVG makes extensive use of them. Double-decker long-distance coaches are also in widespread use throughout Europe.

Most buses in Hong Kong and about half in Singapore are double-deckers as well. The only areas in North America that use double-decker buses for public transport are the western Canadian province of British Columbia and the United States city of Las Vegas. They are currently being tested in Ottawa on the express routes. The city of Davis, California, in the United States uses vintage double-decker buses for public transport run by Unitrans. Unitrans is affiliated with the University of California, Davis, and has run these buses since 1968. Davis, California is also home to the first vintage double-decker bus converted from diesel gasoline to run on CNG. The city of Victoria, BC, the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, and a couple of others use Dennis Tridents. A few are also used as tour buses, especially in New York. Double-deckers are have also been used in Mumbai since 1937.

In Brazil, where buses are sometimes the only interstate transport, some companies use double-decker buses, like those that Viação Cometa uses in the route between Campinas and Rio de Janeiro. Double-deckers are not a good option for use outside rodovias (most roads in Brazil are in very poor condition), and their use is being discouraged by transportation authorities.

Double-decker buses are in widespread use in India in many of the major cities. Most of the buses are local derivatives of either Roadmaster or Leyland.

Some double-decker buses have an open upper deck, with no roof and shallow sides. These are popular for sightseeing tours.

Because of the standard height of tunnels and overhead power wires, many double-deck trains set the bottom deck lower down, between the trucks (bogies in UK and Australasian parlance). Usually the entrance doors are above the bogies, and there is only one deck at the entance area. From there one can go upstairs or downstairs. For example, for the DD-IRM (see below) it is one step up from the station platform to the entrance, and from there seven steps up or four steps down. Some double-decker trains have their entrance doors on the lower level and no steps are needed to get to the lower deck.

France runs double-deck cars on heavily loaded high-speed TGV services and commuter lines such as the Paris suburban RER. The French loading gauge dictates that the double-deck cars have a maximum height of 4200 mm or 13'-9.35".



Other double-deck cars do not have a full upper deck but have a gallery on each side, each with a row of single seats. An example is the bilevel cars provided and leased in the U.S. by Midwest Transportation & Development Corporation of Chicago. They are of a design proven in service and steadily refined since their introduction in the 1950s. These cars, known as "bilevel gallery cars", are among the most successful designs developed, and are currently in daily use in Chicago, San Francisco, and Montreal (Agence métropolitaine de transport). They provide high capacity (155 to 169 passengers each) and use standard, off-the-shelf components, without relying on proprietary, expensive and hard-to-get replacement parts. Chicago's commuter rail system Metra is currently receiving new versions of these cars and Caltrain, the San Francisco area commuter rail authority, has recently overhauled its fleet.

Another advantage of bilevel gallery cars is the relatively low first step of the vestibule entrance to the car, which is 14 5/8" (371 mm) above the head of the rail. The advantage of this is that commuter rail operators do not have to spend scarce funds on building high-level platforms; a low-level platform is all that is necessary, at a far lower cost.

Other designs, including rolling stock made by Colorado Railcar Manufacturing, Budd, Pullman-Standard, Bombardier (Toronto (GO Transit)) and others, have the entrance on the lower deck rather than an intermediate level. Amtrak Superliners are double-decker cars of this variety, with the entrance a step or so up from the lowest station platform level, or at the level of slightly higher platforms, and allow passage from car to car at upper-deck level.

In countries such as the United Kingdom, the railway system cannot accommodate double-deck trains. A modest attempt at double decking was made in 1948 on the Southern Railway with the two trains of the Bulleid 4DD class. Although innovative, with stepped compartments, where the bottoms of the upper seats are above the heads of the people on the lower level, but the feet of the people above are not, see *, the loading gauge severely restricted their use and they were removed from service in 1971. The north eastern US can accommodate split level (double deck) cars only if they are no higher than 14'-6" or 4420 mm. These double deckers run on the Long Island Rail Road: *: and on New Jersey Transit: *: (contact Bombardier Transportation: *) because the loading gauge is too small (i.e. bridges, tunnels, etc. are too low). Similarly the structure gauge of the Mount Royal Tunnel limits the height to 14'-6" or 4420 mm *.

Double-deck trains often have curved windows upstairs. In the dark and in tunnels this causes a distorting mirror effect.

In Finland, VR started operating double-decker sleeping cars on February 1, 2006. The two-bed cabins on the upper deck have toilets and showers while cabins on the lower deck use shared ones. VR also operates double-decker Inter City trains with at-seat power supplies for laptops.

Indian Railways operates intercity trains between Mumbai and Surat, and Mumbai and Pune .

In the Netherlands, there are two types of double-deck trains, the DDM and the DD-IRM, also called Regiorunner: see Trains in the Netherlands.

In Spain several lines of Cercanías (Renfe's commuter rail service) use double-deck trains.

All electric commuter trains in Sydney are double deck. They all have two doors per side per carriage, with a vestibule at each end at platform height. Well-known examples of these trains are the Tangara and Millennium trains. The Sydney double deck commuter trains are 14'-4.5" or 4380 mm high.

In intermodal freight transport, many modern types of container well cars cars are designed to accommodate "double-stacking."

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