Licence Check’s DAVIS platform rolled out across NXWM fleet

National Express West Midlands is the latest part of the National Express Group to roll out Licence Check’s DAVIS licence checking and risk management platform.

With a fleet of over 1,600 buses, National Express employs over 5,500 bus drivers across nine garages in the West Midlands. To improve the efficiency and effectiveness of onboarding drivers, management reporting and internal auditing, National Express West Midlands has now implemented DAVIS across its entire bus operation. It joins other parts of the UK business, including National Express’s coach operations in the south east and the accessible transport arm which provides home-to-school services for special education students.

National Express West Midlands has found that the DAVIS platform is much faster, more streamlined and hassle-free than a previous licence checking package, with a variety of methods for onboarding drivers, including electronic card readers, and providing dashboard-style management information reporting to see at a glance those areas requiring attention.

Another major benefit from a risk management perspective was the ease with which DAVIS integrated with National Express’s driver risk profiling tool. It is able to feed relevant information about each driver, including current licence status, and any penalty points or driving convictions, into the system.

Drivers complete an annual online eyesight declaration to show whether they have a O1 restriction on their licence and require glasses for driving. The results are stored securely in the document library within DAVIS so that the renewals process can be easily managed.

“DAVIS is very easy to use and gives a detailed oversight of our workforce” – Jenny Tocknell

The collection and centralisation of all this information on one platform assists the internal audit process. It also helps National Express to easily identify where driver improvement is needed to reduce risk, with individual training and coaching provided to support driver development.

Jenny Tocknell, Head of Operational Safety and Compliance for National Express West Midlands, said: “DAVIS is very easy to use and gives a detailed oversight of our workforce. It allows us to easily identify and reduce risk while supporting the individual needs of our drivers.

“We have had very positive feedback regarding the benefits of the platform from users, including the Unite union, individual drivers and system administrators.

“Depot supervisors have been very complimentary about DAVIS, especially when compared with the previous system which was rated as not being user friendly and required heavy, time-consuming administrative interventions.”