HAGGiS Adventures and Highland Explorer Tours – Radically different coach touring

Drivers/Tour Managers

The key to the way that Radical Travel Group operate their tours is the driver/tour manager or guide and not surprisingly Pete and Dougie place huge importance on this. ‘They are our front line,’ says Dougie, ‘they are entirely responsible for maintaining our reputation and upholding our principles.’ Not surprisingly the team place a huge emphasis on recruiting and training their ‘drivers’. The best driver/tour managers, according to Peter, come from their customer base, people that have the understanding of what the market is looking for, because they have done it. The most important requirement for a driver/tour manager is that they have a massive knowledge of the territory in which they are operating. They have to be able to impart information to the customer which they wouldn’t get from a guide book – each passenger already gets a free Lonely Planet Guide as part of their tour package so the driver has got to provide more information than that. The Radical team put a lot of effort into making sure their guides have the required knowledge and how to use it especially, the ability to go ‘off piste’, which is an essential element of the Adventure tours.

Initially driving ability is a lesser requirement. Pete explains. ‘First priority is the knowledge; once we know we have that we know we can teach them how to drive the vehicle properly.’ In case I have given the impression that the company accepts a lower standard for the actual driving ability let me reassure you that is not the case. Their driver training programme, which they operate themselves, is rigorous. Every aspect of driving the vehicle is scrupulously covered including all the legislation and how to deal with problems and emergencies. ‘When they’ve completed our training course we have the perfect combination an excellent driver who is also an excellent tour guide,’ says Dougie.

In fact training is key element in everything that Radical Travel Group do. Every member of the team, however long they have been with the company, is regularly put through training programmes to ensure their knowledge on all aspects of the business and particularly customer service, is maintained at 100%. Even Pete and Dougie get training refreshers.

So good are these training packages that Radical now offer them to other companies and there is a high take up of them. When I visited I was accompanied by Gordon Robertson from Coachtraders. He underwent the Radical Driver CPC training programme and said that it was absolutely excellent. ‘I went thinking this is going to be 35 hours of boredom, said Gordon, but it wasn’t, I learned so much. The quality of the tutors was brilliant.’

Fleet

The HAGGiS Adventures and Highland Explorer Tours fleets are based at the company’s depot in Leith. The fleet is entirely made up of vehicles produced by the Spanish mini and midi coach builder Unvi which are sourced through Unvi UK’s Scottish dealer, Coachtraders, based at Whitburn just outside Edinburgh. Peter again, ‘We have standardised on the Unvi product for a number of reasons. By running a basically standardised fleet it means that our drivers are fully familiarised with the vehicles and can take any of them out on a trip. From our point of view it means we have standardised systems and are dealing with just three vehicle types. We are not having to stock parts for a whole raft of different vehicles. The day to day operation of the fleet is under the control of Hugh Bailey who is known simply, for some reason that nobody knows, as Fergie. He schedules the vehicles to the various jobs but also administers the maintenance programme. Radical do not maintain their own vehicles. Because they have a young fleet policy, basically five years or less, much work is covered by manufacturer’s warranty. This is handled either by A1 Commercials, whose facility happens to be right next door to Radical’s yard, or by Ferguson Fleet Care at Whitburn, which is the Unvi UK service dealer for Scotland.

Some of the fleet at the Leith yard. The three vehicles to the left are Unvi Vario based Classic 29 seaters. The Highland Explorer vehicle on the right is the single Unvi Vega on the fleet. It is built on the Sprinter 516 and has16 seats

The largest vehicles in the fleet are a pair of Unvi Tourings built on the Mercedes-Benz Atego 1524 forward engined chassis. These are fitted with 41 seats and have a high specification including double glazing, air conditioning and in-coach entertainment packages. An important feature of the Tourings is their large luggage capacity. One of the Tourings operates for HAGGiS and is in that company’s bright yellow livery, the other operates for Highland Explorer Tours and is in that company’s bright blue livery. These vehicles are generally used for group bookings. Both vehicles are due to be replaced this year although they will probably be retained until the end of this season before any decisions are made on disposing of them. It is likely that one will probably be retained and become a training vehicle. Not surprisingly the replacement vehicles are again two Unvi Tourings, only this time they are the new GT model introduced last year. This continues to use the Mercedes-Benz Atego 1524 chassis and again the vehicles will be equipped to a high specification. Peter admits that they had been very tempted to go for the other new Unvi Touring, the MAN powered, rear engined, GTR with its slightly higher seating capacity, but in the end they decided to stick with what they knew.

Both fleets are predominantly made up of 29 seat Unvi Classics built on the Mercedes-Benz Vario chassis

The rest of the fleet is made up of eight minicoaches. Seven of them are Unvi Classics or Classic Rs built on the long wheelbase Mercedes-Benz Vario 816 chassis. They have 29 seats and feature powered entrance door, double glazing, large rear boot and in-coach entertainment package. Currently three of the fleet are painted in the yellow HAGGiS livery and four are painted in the Highland Explorer Tours blue livery. Obviously, with the demise of the Vario chassis and as a consequence the Unvi range using that chassis, Pete and Dougie are eagerly awaiting details of the replacement vehicle, called the Voyager, which Unvi will be introducing during 2014. The tenth vehicle in the fleet is an extended wheelbase Mercedes-Benz Sprinter. This 16 seater has a similarly high internal specification to the Vario based Classics and is in the Highland Explorer Tours blue livery. On average two or three new vehicles are brought into the fleet every year thus keeping the fleet age within the five year compass.

I asked Peter why the company had decided to standardise on the Unvi product. ‘Quite simply, they do the job we need doing. We have found them to be well built, they are very reliable and we get excellent back-up service from Gordon and the team at Coachtraders, but most of all our customers like them, they are comfortable, they are flexible and they are ideal for our type of operation – we go to many places where you just couldn’t take a larger vehicle.’