Reflecting on a year of growth

First Bus has set the groundwork to enter 2024 with strong momentum, and continued investment

 
Janette Bell: ‘We’re on a mission to get more people to use the bus’

 
By Janette Bell

At First Bus, we’re on a mission to get more people to use the bus – so unsurprisingly this has been the driving force across the business throughout 2023.

We take pride in delivering vital links and an essential service in the communities we serve across the UK and Ireland each day. We have therefore continued to invest in our people, our services and
state-of-the-art technology to consistently improve our customers’ experiences.

We are on our way to achieving our goal of operating a zero-emission bus fleet by 2035. We expect around 15% of our fleet to be zero-emission by March 2024

We have made significant strides in upholding our commitment to sustainability. We are on our way to achieving our goal of operating a zero-emission bus fleet by 2035. We expect around 15% of our fleet to be zero-emission by March 2024.

In 2023, we continued to make progress diversifying our business. Talent attraction incentives and campaigns are underway to implement change and continue our aim of creating an environment where everyone can feel welcome, be their true selves and succeed together.

First Bus has set the groundwork this year to take us into 2024 with strong momentum. We will continue to make strategic and technological investments, pushing forward the electrification of our bus fleet, and building an inclusive workforce.

Strategic investments

This year, we continued to build on our data-led commercial strategy to enhance our customer experience. In April, we became the first major UK bus operator to install Tap On, Tap Off ticketing technology across our entire fleet of over 4,000 buses.

We see this technology as the first step in next-generation ticketing, allowing us to improve our understanding of customers’ travel habits and demand for services. It allows us to make data-led decisions based on our customers’ needs and allows us to match resource and services to demand more easily.

Our trailblazing partnership with technology start-up Prospective.io also made great strides, enabling us to start synchronising our operations using artificial intelligence (AI). The integration of this software has helped us improve the reliability of our timetables, using AI to predict traffic conditions and peak running times to help ensure services run on time.

The software creates and adjusts full timetables and schedules buses in minutes, a process that would typically take days or even weeks to complete. This means local teams can be more agile with frequent, subtle changes to ensure timetables remain accurate throughout the year.

Results have shown that customers are benefiting from improved service quality, with trial routes seeing a 20% increase in punctuality. By the end of 2024, we hope to increase this by implementing the software changes across our networks in the UK.

Committed to sustainability

Alongside our technological improvements, our commitment to sustainability has continued to be a major driving force for us this year.

We invested around £100m across the UK to facilitate our move towards net zero, which included new Electric Vehicles (EVs) and the relevant charging infrastructure. This year our plans include four all EV depots which is an important milestone for our decarbonisation programme, and these will be fully operational by March 2024.

The majority of our electric buses are fast charging and can travel up to 150 miles on a single charge, making them both sustainable and an excellent vehicle for intra-urban travel. Each bus also saves around 60 tonnes of carbon emissions a year.

DPD now has access to our Caledonia and Leicester depots, which have state-of-the-art, rapid charging points to charge their electric vehicles in around 45 minutes

With charging infrastructure now installed at nine of our depots across the UK, and with more to follow, we have actively sought ways to partner with local businesses to aid them in their own decarbonisation journey. For example, DPD now has access to our Caledonia and Leicester depots, which have state-of-the-art, rapid charging points to charge their electric vehicles in around 45 minutes. This enables them to travel a greater distance while making deliveries – while reducing their impact on the environment. This initiative maximises the green potential of our charging hubs – giving back to local businesses and the community while our vehicles are on the road serving our customers.

We have also heavily invested in solar panels to reduce our reliance on the local grid. At our Leicester depot, for example, we have installed over 400 solar panels – which is expected to generate around 55% of the building’s electricity requirements. This renewable energy can then be used to power lighting, heating, office equipment and the engineering bays. Over the 25-year lifetime of the panels, we expect to save the equivalent of almost 400 tonnes of CO2.

 

 
An inclusive workforce

Another significant focus for us in 2023 has been ensuring that we continue to grow an inclusive workforce. We employ over 12,800 people across the UK and Ireland, so it is important that everyone feels fully engaged and part of First Bus’ transformation journey as we continue to put our colleagues and customers at the heart of all we do.

It is simple; to grow our business we need to attract and retain more people. We want to make our jobs accessible to as wide a demographic as possible and ensure they are in keeping with the demands of modern-day working life. To achieve this, we are working hard to change our rosters and how we structure things so we can create more flexible working opportunities.

We have also launched our Reverse Mentoring Programme, which flips the traditional set-up on its head and sees young women mentoring more senior males. Similarly, we have our Female Intentional Allyship Programme, which follows the more traditional mentoring set-up but aims to develop our female colleagues’ skills and confidence.

As we continue to diversify our workforce, new talent attraction initiatives have been introduced to appeal to people that represent the communities we serve

As we continue to diversify our workforce, new talent attraction initiatives have been introduced to appeal to people that represent the communities we serve. We know as an industry there is a long way to go, but we are working hard to rise to the challenge and ensure First Bus is at the forefront of this journey. We want to make a career in the bus industry appeal to as wide an audience as is possible.

We have also stepped-up apprenticeship opportunities for engineers, seeking to take on 50-60 young people every year. Our aim is to train the next generation and furnish them with the skills needed to become experts in the new world of zero-emission bus technology.

As part of this, we launched an industry-leading partnership with Reaseheath College that gives us a world class programme to help us maximise learning and re-create depot environments for our apprentices to learn in. We are about to extend that into a new driver apprenticeship scheme to attract new and under-represented demographics into a career in bus.

Looking ahead to 2024

As we move into 2024, we know that to deliver on our mission of getting more people on the bus, we must continue to evolve and innovate our approach with the customer and our people front of mind. At the same time, we’re working towards our goal of a zero-emission bus fleet by 2035, and complete net zero emissions by 2050.

It is also important to continue transforming our business for our colleagues. We want First Bus to become an even better place to work – a place where our people feel like they are making a difference and are proud to serve their local community – together we can achieve this and much more.

 
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Janette Bell became managing director of First Bus in October 2020. First Bus is one of Britain’s largest bus companies with around a fifth of bus services outside London, and a fleet of more than 5,000 buses. Janette was previously chief executive Officer of P&O Ferries.

 
This article appears in the latest issue of Passenger Transport.

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The post Reflecting on a year of growth first appeared on Passenger Transport.

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