Partnering for Success to Enhance Bus Services

As part of its Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP), West Northamptonshire Council has targeted some of its Department for Transport funding on strengthening stakeholder engagement, to support bus use growth across West Northants. The ‘Partnering for Success’ programme, launched by GO Travel Solutions in late 2024, brings together strategic stakeholders from a broad range of sectors, into a unique, market-led, and effective partnership – providing greater market intelligence which works to shape bus service design and development, and offers wider and more innovative ways to market bus use.

Jersey Franchise: Small Island, Big Lessons

Jersey’s ‘franchise-light’ model offers lessons for smaller cities and rural authorities considering reform. With just one government FTE managing the contract, Jersey has delivered strong outcomes through a genuine authority–operator partnership, clear incentives and a focus on patronage growth. Passenger journeys rose from 3.2m to 5m between 2013 and 2019, with full post-Covid recovery by 2023 and continued growth since, demonstrating how franchising can succeed without the scale or resources of larger metropolitan areas.

Being Best in Class Can be a Dangerous Place

Reading Buses has held the lowest driver-risk score among comparable UK operators for two years – to the point where the usual benchmark no longer pushes it forward.
Discover how it keeps drivers and managers sharp, prevents quiet drift and finds new ways to improve.

Accessibility in Practice: Designing Services for Everyone

CPT explores how the bus and coach sector can make accessibility work in practice. Led by CPT Operations Manager Gavin Miller, the session will look at how inclusive vehicle design can reduce sensory, cognitive and physical barriers, alongside the role of flexible technology in meeting evolving accessibility requirements. It will consider how operators, manufacturers and suppliers can deliver solutions that are practical, cost-effective and improve journeys for everyone.

The Road to Excellence: Compliance, Communication & Operational Best Practice

This session will explore a number of key issues affecting bus and coach operators, with an overarching focus on what excellent compliance management looks like in an increasingly digital world. Alongside effective compliance systems and management practices, the session will cover a range of current topics, including: BODS; reliability and punctuality; PSV(AI)R; PSVAR; common pitfalls when undertaking mixed work; management structures and effective lines of communication. A practical overview of the areas operators need to get right to maintain strong, effective compliance.

Future-Proofing the Workforce: Who Drives the Coach & Bus in 2030?

The sector’s future depends on the people in it – yet operators face driver shortages, an ageing workforce and growing competition for talent. This panel tackles the workforce challenge head-on: attracting new people in, keeping the good ones, and building a more diverse, resilient workforce for the years ahead. Bringing together perspectives on diversity, the next generation, driver wellbeing and industry policy, it explores how to widen the talent pool, reach people who don’t yet see coach and bus as a career, support wellbeing and retention, and create the pathways the sector needs to thrive. A practical look at what needs to change – and what operators can do now.

AI in Coach & Bus: What’s Real & What’s Next

AI is moving fast from buzzword to practical application – across passenger experience, fleet operations, planning and safety. But where is it genuinely delivering value today, what does it take to make it work, and how do operators tell the useful from the hype?
Three practitioners give short, honest talks grounded in real deployments across coach and bus: what AI can do now, what operators need to get right internally to adopt it well, and how to judge when a task needs purpose-built transport AI rather than a consumer tool. A panel discussion and audience Q&A follow.

Coaches into Europe: Navigating the EU Entry/Exit System (EES)

The EU’s Entry/Exit System is changing how coach operators run European tours. As it rolls out across the Schengen Area, new biometric border checks are causing longer processing times and disruption, with more change to come. This session cuts through the uncertainty: what EES means at the border for drivers and passengers, how incorrect entry and exit records can affect the 90-day limit and lead to penalties, and the steps operators should take now to protect their drivers, passengers and tours as the system takes full effect.

Are we Nearly There? Why Hydrogen Still Matters

With battery electric buses making a welcome headway to the zero emission bus market, have all the problems of decarbonising a bus and coach fleet been solved? Even with progress with battery technology, the majority of bus and coach operations are still to be decarbonised.

There has been negative narratives against hydrogen powered vehicles, often based on out of date or inaccurate information, but hydrogen will play a part in the future of zero emission heavy duty transport.

This presentation will remove the myths to give a fair analysis of the future of zero emission for bus and coach.

Preventative Maintenance Compliance Cost Benefit

An overview of what a good preventative maintenance programme looks like in relation to DVSA requirements and the DVSA Guide to Maintaining Roadworthiness. The session will draw on real-time data and findings from the 48,000 inspections carried out each year by Logistics UK’s Vehicle Inspection Team. It will highlight the key areas operators should focus on, from driver-reportable defects to workshop-related maintenance issues, and provide evidence of the cost-saving benefits of a strong preventative maintenance programme.