Top National Bus Depot sponsored by Personal Group

Winner, Gold Award, Crawley – Metrobus

Metrobus started operating from its Crawley depot in 2001 when the existing operator declared that operations in the town unviable. Since then, the company has grown the network from 47 buses to 151. Four services operate, commercially, 24 hours a day. To manage this unprecedented growth, investment in fleet and depot infrastructure, the depot has embraced new technology to provide staff with the latest tools to improve the service such as GPS tracking on all the fleet to help improve reliability. The depot has recently been refurbished to provide staff with better rest facilities and more space for office based staff to do their work in a professional environment. The depot has an enviable reputation for quality, investment and customer service.

Winner, Silver Award, St Andrews – Stagecoach East Scotland

Stagecoach East ScotlandÆs St Andrews depot serves the ancient university town, the ‘Home of Golf’, and the surrounding rural areas. While Taylink99 shuttles to and from Dundee every ten minutes, the remaining routes offer lower frequency links into the city or rural services throughout the region and to Stirling. The professionalism and care shown by the depot team reflects in high operational standards, customer satisfaction and high staff morale. The team are a valued part of the local community, providing the network of services necessary to bring the large number of inward commuters into the town that the university, retail and local tourism sectors rely on given the small scale of the town itself. In addition they are the focal point for many of the visitors welcomed by the town each year. Such is the standing of the St Andrews depot team that they were chosen to test new solutions for customer service and staff engagement on behalf of the Stagecoach Group during 2017/18.

Winner, Bronze Award, Newport, Isle of Wight – Go South Coast – Southern Vectis

Operating from Go South Coast’s Newport depot on the isle of Wight, Southern Vectis is proud to say that it has the highest customer satisfaction rating in the UK, as reported by Transport Focus. The depot’s passion is to deliver the best possible service, operating a fully commercial network for residents and tourists. As one of the island’s largest employers, Southern Vectis plays a key role in the community and wants to keep the island sustainable and encourage bus travel by working with partners and investing in the latest Euro Vl engines.

Finalist, Shrewsbury – Arriva Midlands

The success of Arriva Midland’s Shrewbury depot relies solely on the exceptional and dedicated performance of its people. Cleaners, drivers, engineers and senior management, are a workforce engaged and committed to delivering one key goal – to provide the people of Shrewbury with exemplary customer service. The culture is such that each and every member of the team is made to feel valued and listened to, which is reflected in the way customers are treated. Dedicated to achieving excellence, the team works hard to sustain an impressive business performance while keeping costs under control and providing high quality and reliable services. Staff are enthusiastic and hard working with a number of initiatives in place to ensure that they feel appreciated. This inclusivity extends to stakeholders, businesses and passengers, with Shrewsbury depot staff working hard to maintain open, honest and meaningful discussions with the public.

Finalist, Heckmondwike – Arriva Yorkshire

Anybody who has the pleasure of visiting Arriva Yorkshire’s Heckmondwike depot will immediately recognise it as a friendly and welcoming hub of activity with a real ‘family feel’. This approach has paid dividends for many years, with consistently high levels of service delivery and customer satisfaction. However, even by Heckmondwike’s standards 2017 was an outstanding year. The depot team delivered impressive year-on-year improvements in most performance metrics, maintained and developed a well established bus network, continued to support an engaged workforce with strong industrial relations and demonstrated increasing commitment to customers and the local community. All this was achieved while also introducing a range of efficiency measures to offset the impact of industry wide revenue trends. ‘Hecky’ strikes the perfect balance between old-fashioned ‘can do’ teamwork in a traditional depot environment, while embracing new methods and continually seeking to improve the quality offered to customers.

Finalist, Grimsby – Stagecoach East Midlands

The friendly, skilled and dedicated operational team at Stagecoach East Midlands Grimsby depot continues a tradition of providing a comprehensive, affordable network of bus services, which has been continuously modernised to embrace the latest technological advances in vehicles, ticketing and timetable information. Combined with excellent customer care, a focus on staff health and well being, environmental good practice and strong links to local communities and charities, the Grimsby depot delivers top quality bus services underlined by continuous improvements in all aspects of the operation.

Finalist, Sharston – Stagecoach Manchester

Stagecoach Manchester’s Sharston depot runs services that enabled 27 million customers to get to where they wanted to go over the last year. Operating in a busy city location with services that run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, is challenging, and the achievement of good reliability statistics, consistently strong engineering standards and high customer satisfaction, is a real testament to the team spirit at the depot. There is a strong focus on improving the local environment and a real community feel at the depot which is very much evident in the willingness of the team to support community events and undertake a wide range of challenges to raise money for local charities.

Finalist, Intack – The Blackburn Bus Company

Operating from its Intack depot in Blackburn, The Blackburn Bus Company has been on a radical transformation of improvement over the last few years, and the journey is not over. The company will endeavour to continue to work towards its vision to delight its customers and stakeholders. It aims to create buses that people want to be seen on. The company puts customers first by investing in training, vehicles and infrastructure. Excellent customer survey results of 97% satisfaction on the routes 6 and 7, and 99% satisfaction on Red Express, shows what the team at the depot have achieve.