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business success in association with
New investment is just the ticket for Reading Buses
As economic growth returns to the region, the increasing number of people taking public transport has prompted a boom time for Reading Buses, which has just made a multi-million pound investment in a new environmentally-friendly fleet of vehicles, writes Alison Dewar
The company is seeing year-to-date passenger numbers running in excess of 10% over the previous year, while revenue is also on an upward curve. At the same time, the company is trialling new technology to speed up the way passengers pay their fares.
Finance director Tony Pettitt says the improving economy and continued investment in new fares, services and buses is delivering strong results.
“We are seeing significant growth in passenger journeys and revenue, we’ve brought in new products, such as our Solo travel card for under 19s, and we’ve introduced a new fleet of environmentally-friendly vehicles which have proved very successful,” he said.
The bus company employs around 480 people – some 350 of whom are drivers – and carries about 20 million passengers a year who contribute to its £28 million turnover. It is 100% owned by Reading Borough Council, something Pettitt says is important because it means a different ethos underpins the way the organisation works.
“We’re still very commercially-driven and set out to always trade profitably, but we are also very concerned with the quality and quantity of the service we are able to provide for the residents of Reading,” he said.
“If we were being purely commercial about the way we operate, we may do some things differently. Our view is that what’s important is having the right type of service in the right areas, and that’s key to the way we do business.
“It also gives us the impetus to look at the green agenda, which is very close to our hearts and that of our local politicians. We have always been at the front of the queue when it comes to looking at new technologies, ways to reduce our carbon footprint and improve localised air pollution.”
Part of that commitment has seen it become one of the first bus companies in the UK to buy a fleet of buses, now 34 in total, fuelled by compressed natural gas.
www.businessmag.co.uk From left: David Rushbrook, Chris Jones and Tony Pettitt
and pay technology on its buses in the next few months.
At a cost of around £200,000 each, Pettitt says these offer a quieter and smoother ride, while generating nothing more than a little steam from the exhaust.
Barclays provided asset financing to help make the deal possible after starting to provide day-to-day banking for Reading Buses a year ago.
“Barclays was able to offer us enhanced levels of service and access to the financial markets that we wouldn’t necessarily have had before, and we’ve been very pleased with the service,” said Pettitt.
Critical to the arrival of the new ultra-green vehicles was the ability to be able to re-fuel, wash and do maintenance checks in the same way as the rest of the fleet, which lines up daily to go through a fuelling “island” at the bus company’s depot.
Unlike in Europe, where the technology has been around for a long time and buses are re-filled slowly overnight, this meant developing a system which could fill the gas tanks in just five minutes – the same as a diesel tank.
As a result, the company has invested more than £800,000 in a high pressure gas compression plant which not only does the job in the required time, but now pipes the gas in from an anaerobic digestion plant, making the whole process completely carbon neutral.
Pettitt is determined to continue to attract an ever- increasing number of people onto the buses, but says a combination of more bus lanes and traffic light-priority are very important.
“If we don’t operate a reliable service then we don’t attract the passengers. People rely on our services and if they deteriorate, then it becomes a real problem,” he said. “With the economy improving, that means more traffic on the roads, making it more difficult for us to operate at a time when more people want to travel by bus.”
One solution is to help speed up the boarding process and Reading Buses is working closely with Barclaycard with a view to integrating new wave
This will be in addition to its current contactless smartcards, giving passengers more choice about how they pay for their journey and doing away with the need for them to find the right change.
David Rushbrook, relationship director at Barclays, said: “Barclays leads the way in contactless technology and we were very happy to work with Reading Buses in helping them with their plans to introduce this system, and also to help finance the new buses, which are cheaper and more efficient to run, as well as being much more environmentally-friendly.”
With all its new plans in the pipeline, it’s clear Reading Buses is determined to ensure that the population of Reading really does stay “on the buses”.
Details:
Tony Pettitt 0118-9594000
tonypettitt@reading-buses.co.uk www.reading-buses.co.uk
David Rushbrook 07775-543264
dave.j.rushbrook@
barclays.com Corporate Banking
Chris Jones 07824-527738
chris.jones3@
barclays.com Asset Finance
www.barclays.com/corporatebanking
The views expressed in this article are the views of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Barclays Bank PLC Group nor should they be taken as statements of policy or intent of the Barclays Bank PLC Group. The Barclays Bank PLC Group takes no responsibility for the veracity of information contained in the third part guides or articles and no warranties or undertakings of any kind, whether express or implied, regarding the accuracy or completeness of the information given. The Barclays Bank PLC Group takes no liability for the impact of any decisions made based on information contained and views expressed.
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – SOLENT & SOUTH CENTRAL – MAY 2014
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