The 2021 winners of the UK Bus Awards and UK Coach Award – combined into a single event this year – have been announced.
The awards this year took a very different shape, focussed almost entirely on standout operators and staff through the pandemic.
Many awards had two separate winners, one from the bus industry and one from the coach sector.
The Build Back Better award – designed to recognised initiatives helping buses and coaches to recover quickly and efficiently, went to Transdev for bus and Belle Vue for coach. Transdev was credited for ‘extensive positive messaging about travelling by bus’ along with its expansion through the purchase of Yorkshire Tiger.
Belle Vue meanwhile was described by the judges as ‘a blueprint for how to survive the pandemic.’ National Express West Midlands and Yellow Buses were named as ‘highly commended.’
The Build Back Better Champion award was aimed at ‘senior figures who put themselves out to promote the wider bus or coach sectors over and above their own business.’ Martijn Gilbert was the bus winner, for ‘outstanding leadership, fast decision making and high visibility among staff and the public.’
Two coach winners were named. The first was Candice Mason from Masons Mi…
