The business has seen rapid growth across a wide area, and plans to continue growing whilst maintaining a focus on service delivery, investment, recruitment and retention
A five million pound investment and strategic staff appointments will underpin Vectare’s next phase of growth as it plans the next stage of its expansion. The fast-growing provider of mobility and transport technology solutions has launched its ‘Bigger Business – Better Buses’ strategy, setting out its plans for its next phase of growth.
The business was founded in 2016 by young entrepreneurs Dominic Kalantary and Peter Nathanail, and has grown to employ 200 staff and operate a fleet of 100 buses, coaches and minibuses. It works in partnership with 125 schools and 80 partner coach operators to deliver more than 600 daily home to school transport routes.
Vectare began operating buses in 2018, starting with a single minibus engaged in ad-hoc work. Following the successful completion of three acquisitions, most recently that of Galleon Travel/Central Connect in Essex, Peter Nathanail, Commercial and Operations Director, explained where the business is headed next: “Having quickly reached the milestone of 100 vehicles, my team and I have worked very hard to develop a strategy that will support our transition from a small, independent operator into the medium sized regional operator that we are quickly becoming. We’re investing £5 million in brand new fleet in 2024 to improve the quality of journey we deliver to our customers, restructuring our management team to bolster our resource levels, and analysing every aspect of our customers’ journey with us to identify opportunities to make journeys more reliable, more consistent and more enjoyable.”
£3m of the announced investment will see Vectare add 15 8.9m ADL Enviro200 MMC single-deck service buses to a bespoke interior specification. These are due for delivery in May this year. The remaining £2m will be spent on a combination of minibuses and single- and double-deck buses, with manufacturers and models not yet announced.
Alongside the fleet enhancements, Vectare’s revised and expanded management team will now consist of, alongside Dominic and Peter, Adam Hemingway in a Head of Commercial role, following an internal promotion from Commercial Manager. Working alongside
Adam, and leading a team of operational managers, will be Rachel Perkins, who joins the business as Head of Operations from a previous management role at Bluestar and Unilink.
“I am thrilled to be joining the Vectare team in January. I’ve long been an admirer of their business and to have the opportunity to work with the team in providing the best possible service for our passengers and work environment for our colleagues is a real honour,” said Rachel.
Vectare’s approach has been to operate bus services wherever it sees that a gap in the market, tendered or commercial, exists for it to do so. This has led to the operator’s vehicles ending up in a wide range of places, and, says the company, allows the business to punch above its weight in terms of geographical coverage. Vectare’s operations stretch from Derbyshire in the west to the eastern coast of England, encompassing 13 different local transport authority areas.
Peter is clear that there are no plans to shrink this patch or condense operations, but that a focus on increasing the concentration of network coverage is now coming. “In order to achieve growth, we’ve taken opportunities across a huge geographic area, setting up new depots and outstations as required,” he explained. “This is mainly because we’ve not wanted to engage in head to head commercial competition. We believe that it is wasteful, and does not lead to sustainable transport services for passengers. We will compete where we feel we can offer a genuinely better or more innovative service, but our main focus has been on identifying new opportunities to support business growth without being destructive towards the networks of older, more established operators. Now that our business has matured, we’re going to focus on developing networks in the areas where we already operate, by filling gaps and working closely with local authorities to introduce new services using Section 106, BSIP+ and de-minimis funding.”
The first stage of the firm’s ‘Bigger Business – Better Buses’ strategy will take Vectare to mid-2025, whereupon a further review is planned to establish the best path to take to continue developing the business. However, Peter and Dominic are clear that their strategy will still be ‘rooted in excellence in service delivery, investment in fleet, recruitment and retention of the very best front-line colleagues, and an unrelenting focus on the customer experience,’ ingredients that they say have formed the basis of Vectare’s success to date, and which will allow the business to continue delivering high-quality, sustainable passenger transport in the years to come.
