Entries for this year’s IRTE Skills Challenge, the competition for bus and coach technicians and apprentices, are now being sought. The event is celebrating its tenth anniversary with the addition of a new technical test. The new challenge is based on the joint mechanical and electrical skills base, known as mechelec, and is intended to […]
National Express Coach has expanded its network of scheduled airport coach services outside of the UK with a contract award in Ireland. The UK’s largest coach operator has secured the deal to run a high-frequency, cross-city network with Ireland-based Bernard Kavanagh Coaches operating the service on their behalf. It is now advertising roles for new […]
Traffic Commissioner Nick Denton took the unusual decision to issue the permits on a short-term basis to ensure that children in the West Midlands could get to school, following the financial collapse of ATG which revealed it had not performed DBS checks on staff and it had no records of vehicle safety checks. In this […]
The council audit which revealed the scale of deficiency in the Accessible Transport Group (ATG) in the West Midlands is a shocker. ATG ran 600 vehicles on a variety of services, including Ring and Ride and schools transport, mainly using accessible minibuses and all on Section 19 permits using paid drivers. We have significant doubts […]
KB Coaches started around 40 years ago, when Ken Boulton and Ben Niblet contributed the first letters of their forenames to its title… though Ben didn’t remain with the business for very long. The rented site at Claypits near Stonehouse had even earlier coaching connections as the base for Lock’s Coaches. Andy used to travel […]
Halton Borough Transport ceased trading as of midnight on 24 January. It has entered liquidation following a long period of financial problems. According to its full accounts published on Companies House for the period to 31 March 2019, Halton Borough Transport made a loss of £619,695, compared to the loss made in the same period […]
An audit of community transport organisation, the Accessible Transport Group (ATG), which went into receivership last March, reveals that there was no record of vehicle safety checks and DBS checks were not done. ATG, which ran 600 vehicles on Section 19 and 22 ‘not for profit’ permits, carrying more than 2,000 school children on more […]
BusyBus owner Peter Rosenfeld has initiated a ‘class action’ against Ford, alleging his Transit minibuses were unfit for sale, and is urging other operators to join the legal challenge. The Cheshire minibus specialist whose woes prompted our feature in issue 1563 is working with transport law firm Fieldfisher LLP to launch a Group Litigation, which […]