Half Term

Thanks for checking in again.

This is a busy week as it is also school half term holidays.

On Monday I was able to see the progress on RT8 at EnsignBus. It is getting on really well and will be absolutely spectacular when it is finished next year.

However it has its own blog and you can follow its progress easily enough on

http://restoringrt8.blogspot.com/

We were all in Aberdeen this week for a Directors’ Safety Conference – a subject we take very seriously in First. The results are exceptional – we have, as a result of all our efforts, made significant inroads to injuries, fatalities and collisions but there is still much to do. Critically delivering improvements gets harder as the results get better but we are driven on in the knowledge that since we have locations able to deliver zero injuries then we can do that everywhere else.

The usual mad scramble out to Aberdeen airport in the evening peak traffic and down to London. As is so often the case we made good progress and landed ahead of schedule only to wait on the taxiway waiting for the aircraft parking guidance lights to be switched on (by which time we were late). I wonder why they don’t leave them on all the time, I wonder? All in all it caused me to arrive at the Heathrow Express platform at Terminal 5 with display I like least – NEXT TRAIN 14 MINS – which means you’ve just missed one.

Passenger Focus today announced the results of the Bus Mystery Traveller Survey – a task it has taken over from the DfT. It’s all at http://www.passengerfocus.org.uk/what-we-are-doing/bus-and-coach/

This is in addition to the new survey work being undertaken by Passenger Focus in preparation for when their role becomes formalised in 2010. We already carry out our own surveys and taken together these provide a good guide to what’s hot and what’s not in the minds of the passengers.

If you ride with us, even if you don’t get surveyed, do please tell us what you think and tell us quickly so we can attend to it. You will find contact details on our company websites.

Lastly if you Twitter than I always use it to announce new messages on this blog. If you are a follower than you’ll always know when a new message is here. Try it!