INSIDE TRACK
A well maintained fleet keeps costs under control, boosts revenue by inspiring customer confidence and improves air quality
Put me underneath a bus and I would struggle to tell you which end is which, but I want to throw the spotlight on this industry’s silent heroes – the fitters in the workshop.
Successful bus operation is a team effort. While drivers are usually our public face, no buses would run without the combined efforts of a vast army behind the scenes, whether they be cleaners, administrators, managers or many others.
Those maintaining our fleets perform a particularly thankless task, for which they rarely get the credit they deserve. This was summed up by an anonymous job review I read recently on an employment search website: ‘Cold dark workshop, no parts, no help from management’.
This will strike a chord with many, but why are things like this and how can we improve matters? Bus companies have traditionally been run along strict departmental lines, and engineering has always been a poor relation. Most senior managers come from the traffic side, and too often regard engineers as a necessary evil. The extent of ambition for the maintenance function is to meet the number of vehic…
