Travelines - Positive news from Bakers - Euro MPs - Expanding Bus Services - Private Hire Onwards. and Upwards - 2009 Adventures Success - New Drivers and Office Staff
Our business - about service and reliability
Welcome to the July issue of Travelines - keeping you up to date with everything going on at Bakers. Summer is upon us and I’m sure, like me, you are all hoping it will be sunnier than last year! To go with the good weather, we have plenty of positive news about the company to share with you...
Bakers reach a European platform
A few weeks ago Liz Lynne, Liberal Democrat MEP for the West Midlands region, dropped by our depot in Biddulph to chat with me about the issues facing the coach industry across Europe. Liz was in the area to meet with local businesses and discuss how she could help voice our interests at the European parliament in Brussels. We spoke about a number of topics, including how the industry is looking to put into practice important legislation on access for disabled people. Liz was shown one of the two coaches we have had specially adapted to make sure we can offer a comfortable service to all our customers and seemed impressed by our commitment to making our buses and coaches accessible for all. It was good to meet Liz, and also good to know that our opinions count at a European level, especially with the recent elections.
Philip Baker
Managing Director
More services for bakerbus
Our bus services have seen an excellent period of growth, and over the twelve months to 2009 new services have been introduced in Staffordshire and Cheshire. The fleet has expanded to 33 vehicles - and numbers of passengers carried per day has grown by 50 percent to four thousand five hundred.
To reward our regular travellers, we have launched a loyalty scheme whereby they can collect "bus miles" to get money off our popular coach Awaydays and holidays. Each type of bus ticket represents a set number of miles, which can be collected on the special leaflet and when a certain number is reached travellers can get a discount on a coach trip of their choice.
Recent improvements to services include the 77 service, which has been renamed "77 sunset strip" - some people will remember the much acclaimed American television series from the 1960s, but most will be familiar with this very British bingo call! Easy access low floor buses have been introduced, to make this service accessible to customers of all age groups and ability.
The popular bakerbus 99 service has been given a snappy new name - "The Pennine Way - the scenic route" - in order to reflect the beautiful countryside the route passes through on its journey from Biddulph and on up to Macclesfield via Congleton. There are now more journeys to and from popular locations along the route, including a special link to Congleton rail station which will help commuters travelling to and from Manchester and Birmingham. Extra journeys have also been added on Saturdays too, making it ideal for both business travellers and tourists alike.
The bakerbus Beartown network which operates around Congleton has been improved too, with extra journeys between West Heath, Buglawton and Congleton Station, and minor adjustments to the Bromley and Mossley timetables. New Beartown timetable leaflets have been distributed door to door and are available at Congleton Station. There have also been changes to services 33/33A Westlands - Newcastle and 94/94A Biddulph - Tunstall - Wolstanton - Newcastle to make travelling around the region more reliable.
bakerbus is now onboard with a new local authority, GMPTE, having just received the exciting news that we have won the 372 Stockport to Bramhall route. This is an excellent opportunity for us, especially as it will give us the chance to enhance the 391 Middlewood to Stockport route to an hourly service. Running on this service will be a new ADL Enviro E200 bus.
Private Hire onwards and upwards
Success is seen in the Private Hire Department with an increase in quotes requested, with around 30% of all of these being from brand new customers. The latest on new contracts includes our work with supermarket chain Morrisons, who we will be working with seven days a week on a private hire basis for the next three months, taking staff members from Cheadle to Milehouse for training. Other prestigious contracts are also in the pipeline.
The football fans amongst us will know that this time of year is when the big trophies are won or lost and Bakers have been involved with a number of crunch matches, including sending thirteen coaches of Glossop North End fans down to Wembley for the FA Vase final against Whitley Bay. Our drivers must know the way to Wembley like the back of their hand, as we also sent coaches down to the stadium for the Championship and League Two play-off finals. We carried Shrewsbury supporters to their match against Gillingham and also jubilant Burnley fans who were able to celebrate their team winning promotion to the Premier League. Staying on a sporting topic, we are also proud to help Manchester Storm Ice Hockey team, who we provided the team coach for last season.
We are also supporting Biddulph Festival by providing a free shuttle bus to and from Folk in the Park on Sat 11th July and SKYFEST on Sun 12th July. This year’s festival has picked The Donna Louise Trust as their Charity Partner, a hospice which offers respite and end of life care for children.
Adventures by Coach 2009
We are halfway through the year, and it has been really pleasing to hear the consistently positive feedback from customers about the hard work of our drivers and the quality of the trips. The hard work now is to make the rest of the year a similar success and there is plenty to tell you about, not in the least that places on our coaches to the Edinburgh Tattoo are now fully booked.
Our holiday department had an open day on 20th June to launch the new Festive brochure and promote the remaining summer holidays, which went extremely well with all customers who came to see us making a booking. Stephanie and Sue were on hand answer questions about the excellent selection on offer and Phil donned his pinny to make the tea!, As always our Festive Adventures by Coach have a whole host of great options for beating those winter blues with Christmas Markets and Bauble and Berries itineraries there’s sure to be something to take everyone’s fancy.
We also have an open evening on 1st July with Collette Worldwide holidays, who we work with to provide flight holidays. A representative from Collette will be giving a presentation and holding a question and answer session afterwards to discuss the breaks we are offering this year, which are Trains of the Colorado Rockies (Sept 09), Exploring New Zealand (Nov 09) and Christmas Markets on the Danube (Dec 09)
Bakers training
As our in-house CPC trainer, Geoff Barker has helped all of our 97 drivers to complete the first year of their DCPC and the 1st stage of their qualification to gain NVQ level 2. We are now be offering drivers from others companies the chance to complete their CPC - a new legal requirement for all those with a PCV licence - with us too.
Coming soon ...
With all the changes and increase in business we are now in the process of revamping the website to reflect the changes so that our customers new and existing have easy access to information regarding large range of services we can provide.
