What is this thing on school buses/big vehicles?

Question

So, I noticed that on some school buses that I ride is that they are automatics, and they have the regular gear shifts such as park, neutral, reverse, and drive, but below those, they have the numbers 1, 2 and sometimes 3. I noticed that sometimes when we are going up hills, my bus driver uses those. What are those numbers? What do those gears do?

Answer 1

Best Answer - Chosen by Voters

drive automatically changes gears but when you put it into a certain gear like 1 it only stays in first gear.

Answer 2

the number is the gear for example if the bus is in 3ed gear but is haveing a hard time pulling up the hill the driver shifts into second this will put less strain on the transmission.