Sevenoaks operator Go-Coach made the leap to demand-responsive transport (DRT) with Via as Covid-19 hit last spring. Peter Jackson caught up with the firm’s Managing Director, Austin Blackburn, to learn how successful the project has been
Go-Coach has had its eye on DRT for a while. Founded in 2008, the Sevenoaks-based independent has always been happy to embrace new ways of growing its ridership, so DRT seemed like a natural step – it just required the right circumstances to be in place to make it a success.
“We’ve been planning the introduction of DRT for a couple of years, so it was on the horizon before Covid hit,” explained Managing Director Austin Blackburn. “The thing is, even though we’re very close to London here, we are really quite rural. We basically needed to start thinking about saving money if we were going to be sustainable as a business in the long-term – a lot of what we were doing was marginal at best.
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