Travelines - Tough going but Bakers continues to expand - Holiday makers switching to UK destinations - bus passengers increasing - new work for engineering support - more drivers and support staff - best practice showcased at the House of Commons
Our business - about service and reliability
Welcome to the March edition of
Bakers Travelines - our company newsletter for employees, business partners and clients.
Winter is behind us and looking across all our business activities we can be optimistic that 2009 is going to be another year of growth and success.
Meeting the challenges
First we should say a very big
thank you to all our drivers for all their hard work during the severe weather we encountered earlier this year. The drivers are at the front line when it comes to delivering customer service and we do appreciate their professional commitment. Our local bus operations continued to operate normally despite difficult weather conditions, further strengthening our promise for reliable service and the safety of our customers at all times.
Philip Baker
Managing Director
Britain is Best
2009 orders are encouraging for coach hire and there has been a positive response to the new excursions programme. On the holiday side we have done some extra promotion in the High Street as well as our Open Day at the Coach Travel Centre in January; both initiatives proved very successful. We hope to maintain the momentum by participating in the Coach Operators Holiday Show at North Staffs Hotel on the 1st March, which has been organised in conjunction with a number of local operators.
Drawing on the increased popularity of UK holidays and the excellent service provided by our drivers in 2008, 2009 is set to be an exciting year for Bakers Holidays.
'The major advantage of Bakers Coach Travel is that customers start their holidays from the minute they board without having to fit into the schedules of budget airlines or extended feeder systems, making coach travel a very popular alternative for a growing number of people', says Stephanie Hutt, Tours Executive for the company.
This year UK holidays are offering better value for money than comparable trips aboard as a result of the downturn in the exchange rate. This not only discourages travel outside Britain, but also encourages inbound tourism, something we hope to gain greatly from in both the Holidays and the Private Hire Departments.
Local Bus Services
bakerbus has secured additional contracts with Cheshire County Council. In January the new Macclesfield Shuttle was launched with another section of the network linking Middlewood to come into operation in March.
We are very encouraged with the response to our new vehicles and the travelling public do appear to be responding to our efforts to get them to choose to travel by
bakerbus. We are achieving this by offering a slightly enhanced frequency, together with our high standards of customer service.
The fleet has been extended with the acquisition of five Volvo B6 low floor buses that will be operating on the Newcastle route.
Congleton Beartown Service
The extremely successful Congleton Beartown service operated in conjunction with Cheshire County Council has been singled out as one of the top five partnerships with Local Authorities in the country.
Off the back of this success Phil has visited the House of Commons in February with Cheshire County Council to showcase a presentation to Politicians, outlining how a successful bus service with Local Authority partnership should be run! The event coincided with the signing of an agreement between CPT and the Public Transport Commission, which is led by the local Government Association to confirm the of the benefits of Public/Private partnership.
Phil comments that
'a number of MP's including Charlotte Atkins and Sir Nicholas Winterton came to talk to us, we also had the opportunity to meet with a number of Senior Politicians including the Transport Minister and interest was expressed by both the Shadow Transport Ministers from the Liberal Democrats, and the Conservatives. Stephen Hammond (Conservative Shadow Transport Minister) was very interested in our achievement in best practice of partnership working, in which the Beartown Service has produced some remarkable results'.
Driver training
Our driver training programme, which is fully credited to CPC standard, has kicked off under the supervision of Geoff Barker. Bakers Coaches has committed to qualifying our drivers to NVQ Level 2 in Passenger Transport, through Stoke on Trent College with Geoff as an Approved Assessor.
All drivers receive defensive driving training, which offers the benefits of not only reducing accidents but ensuring that vehicles are driven smoothly and efficiently to ensure excellent fuel consumption.
Welcome Aboard
We are continuing to strengthen our workforce with appointments within the garage and administration. Terry Brown takes the helm on the technical side in the newly created role of Engineering Commercial Manager. We are starting to increase the amount of business completed in the workshop and are looking at enhancing the systems in the garage to provide a more efficient output. As our scope has increased and we are doing more heavy work, refurbishment as well as body work damage and repairs. Additional staff include, Gavin Boydon who comes to us as an experienced fitter, John Stonier a former driver who has now returned to the garage.
On the administration side, Sue Johnson has joined us as PA to Phil Baker and Sue Baker has moved into the Tours Department to help Stephanie as bookings increase. Steve Bolton has joined the Private Hire department as Business Development Manager with the support of Shirley part time from May.
New and returned drivers to our expanding bus division are Anthony Poole, Adam Tunstall, Brian Le Maistre, David Luckman, Dennis Viggars, Derek Whitmore, Geoff Espley, Joseph Reese, Matthew Walton, Micheal Robertson, Phil Wood, Peter Wilbraham, Steven Banks, Shaun Quigley, Shaun Smith, Terry Atherton and Warren Noakes. New additions to the coach team are Garry Gleghorn, Richard Johnson, Steve King and Shaun Nelson.
Better by Bus - Leave the car at home
According to figures released by the RAC, rocketing petrol and diesel costs have contributed to a 17 percent increase in the cost of motoring. It now costs on average £6,133 a year to keep a car on the road, that's nearly £120 a week! Motorists are now forking out a fifth (19 percent) more to keep their cars on the road. No wonder people are thinking again about their cars. Read the full report at
www.rac.co.uk/web/library/pdfs/COM2008OCT.pdf
