Officials are trying to determine why an NJ Transit bus with a dead driver inside idled for nearly five hours at the Port Authority terminal in New York.



Thomas Truex was found slumped in a passenger seat around 3 p.m., hours after he dropped off his last commuters Thursday morning.

When Truex didn't return the bus to the Meadowlands garage as planned, NJ Transit officials called his wife, but she hadn't seen him.

At about the same time, the bus was spotted at the Port Authority, parked near a curb where drivers routinely stop for a bathroom or coffee break.

The fact that he was in a passenger seat made it less likely that security would have noticed him, officials said.

"It would not have looked out of the ordinary," said Port Authority spokesman Steve Coleman told The Record newspaper.



Coleman said officials probably need to take a look at coordination to make sure anything out of the ordinary is checked out.



Truex had been a driver for 26 years.



His death is not considered suspicious.