Go-Ahead Group has released an Interim Management Statement for the period from June 29, 2014 to October 20, 2014.
David Brown, Group Chief Executive of Go-Ahead, said:“Trading in the first quarter has been robust and our full year expectations for both bus and rail operations remain unchanged.
“Delivering excellent levels of customer service is important to us and I’m proud our bus division achieved its highest ever satisfaction score of 92%. Even at these levels, there is always room for improvement and we will continue to listen to customers and local community groups to keep on improving our services.
“Our London and regional bus operations continue to perform well and we remain on course to achieve our operating profit target of £100m by 2015/16.”
Go-Ahead’s regional bus business saw revenue growth of 5%, with no significant change in passenger journeys. The company said this has largely been driven by increased contract revenue, where associated journeys are not recorded. While commercial and concessionary passengers numbers are broadly consistent, the operator highlighted a weakness in the north east.
In London, revenue growth was again around 5%, which the company said had been driven by the reallocation of bus service operators grant (BSOG) of 4.9%. Mileage operated fell in line with the company’s expectations, following the previous year’s good growth on the back of contract wins. Rail replacement work was delivered at similar levels year on year.
