Go-Ahead Irizar completes Zambia trek for Transaid

An Irizar Century from Go-Ahead’s fleet has completed its journey from the Isle of Wight to Lusaka in Zambia.

The coach is to be used in training drivers to ensure public transport journeys are safe across Sub-Saharan Africa. The Southern Vectis coach, part of Go-Ahead subsidiary Go South Coast, was donated to transport charity Transaid, who provides driving and maintenance training across Africa.

The coach travelled for over a month for 4,900 miles via road and sea. It reached the Lusaka International Training Centre (ITC) in Zambia in December and was recently officially unveiled at a launch event.

The government-backed training centre trains thousands of drivers a year. Transaid trained 1,435 drivers at the ITC between April 2020 and March 2021.

Go-Ahead’s Managing Director for Business Development, Martin Dean, said: “We’re delighted to donate our second vehicle to the Lusaka Training Centre. Our work with Transaid is so important for us to help the wider transport community. Road traffic accidents are the third highest cause of death in Zambia and driver training is vitally important.”

This is the second vehicle Go-Ahead has donated to the ITC. The company also donated a Go-Ahead London red single-decker bus in 2019.