Going the Wright way

Local Government spending cuts continue to have a negative impact on many family-owned operators around the country. David Wright explained to Andy Izatt how his company, Travel Wright of Newark which places considerable importance on its traditional values, has responded to that challenge

Travel Wright was 90 years old in 2016, but the respected operator from Newark run by the fourth generation of the Wright family didn’t feel much like celebrating at the time. While it might be best-known for its smart frontline coaches, local bus operation was and continues to be a valued part of what it does and the impact of local authority cutbacks was being felt. Despite market conditions continuing to be generally difficult, it has subsequently fought back growing other areas of its business. As Director and Tour Manager David Wright explained, having to deal with and overcome adversity is nothing new for a firm that now operates close to 40 vehicles.

“We became a limited company in 2004,” David recalled. “By that time I’d been with the family firm for two decades having first qualified as an accountant, training that gave me valuable insight into how to run the business differently. My younger brother Colin, sister Paula and I all joined at about the same time.

“By the time the limited company was formed our then garage had become a real concern.[wlm_nonmember][…]

[/wlm_nonmember][wlm_ismember] Built in the 1920s it had an asbestos roof and was designed for around 10 vehicles that were no more than 2.8m high and 9m long. Most of our vehicles were 12m by then and the fleet had grown to nearly 30.

“The garage was something like 5cm over 24m deep so to get two 12m coaches in with one in front of the other, the rear of the one behind needed to be touching the back wall. If we parked tightly enough we could just about get the doors of the building shut, but quite often they wouldn’t and we would have to back the vehicle in front in by another two or three centimetres which made all the difference.

“Parked in front and down the side of the garage overnight would be a solid row of coaches. There was no security fence, but to be honest we never had a serious problem because of that – just silly ones like a driver getting a shock when he or she boarded a vehicle in the morning and found someone sleeping rough on the backseat. However, the damage resulting from minor collisions was considerable. It was at least two thirds of our insurance claims and could be £2-3,000 a time because it invariably involved more than one vehicle.

“I remember going with my father Terry to the solicitors to sign the paperwork so building work could start on new premises in Brunel Business Park. It was a massive commitment at the time. We were thinking, ‘do we really want to do this?’ We couldn’t sell the old place until we’d moved, but we all knew we needed to do something. We really had gone past the point of no return.

“That view was reinforced when our banksman was injured and taken to hospital, a serious incident that needed to be reported to the Health & Safety Executive. The lady who came to investigate recognised that the recommendations she would otherwise have had to make would be meaningless because we were moving. The new site was still a building site, but I was able to show her pictures and explain that each of our vehicles would be parked in a 13m-long bay.

“We moved in on August 24, 2006. That’s almost 11 years ago, but we make a point of ensuring the premises remain smart. It’s particularly important that our reception is welcoming and we do what we can ourselves to ensure everything is right. For example, there can be litter in the yard because when the drivers sweep out, it tends to blow away when they’re trying to put it in bins. I’ll pick up whatever I see each morning before coming into the office. I also regularly trim the hedges and have the white lines repainted.”

The right team

“I carry a lot of responsibility as does my sister Paula who is Company Secretary and Accounts Manager, and our brother Colin who’s Transport Manager,” David continued. “Colin is assisted by Transport Scheduler Andrea Wagstaff who is extremely well organised. We have every day planned now until the schools break up for the summer holiday, enabling us to see if we have options to take on extra work. Andrea is very good at explaining to drivers what she has in mind for them and working with them to make sure that they’re comfortable with it.

“Staff numbers are around 50 with about 40 of those holding PCV licences. We pay our drivers more than we used to which is deserved, but we wish it could be more. Like all operators we’re constrained by how much people are prepared to pay to hire a coach or what we earn from a school run.

“We have some very good drivers. Turnover is very low. Those that do leave are usually retiring or occasionally it’s because of ill health. The best analogy I can give about our people is that they’re like a cricket team. We have batsmen (coach drivers), bowlers (bus drivers) and all-rounders who can easily switch roles. The all-rounders may be best, but we also need some specialist batsmen and bowlers too! We field the team depending on the conditions and workload that day.

“I really don’t like the Driver CPC. I wake up feeling almost sick when I have to do it myself and I think a lot of my drivers feel the same. Yes, you can pick up a few tips, but there’s no way it would compare with having an hour’s instruction on the road. I see it as a tax on the business – money that could be spent in much better ways.

“I feel the same about what we have to spend on DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) checks. That’s £56 a time and I’ve got 40 drivers. We do this via Lincolnshire County Council otherwise we can’t do any of its contracts of which we have three or four. Thankfully Nottinghamshire County Council is quite happy with this arrangement so at least we don’t have to check twice!

“While we do have an older workforce, we are managing to recruit some younger people. Five or six of our drivers are in their 30s and lets not forget that many of our long-serving staff members started young. For example, Office Manager Helen Kay was 18 and she’s been here the best part of three decades while Workshop Manager Dave Walker has been with us for over 30 years on and off. His son Nathan started as an apprentice and is still here, while at the other end of the age spectrum there’s mechanic Gordon Garton with 51 years service. He’s cut back to three days a week now, but is still happy to be here.

“I’ll also mention Yard Foreman Wayne Munslow. His wide-ranging responsibilities include notifying drivers of road closures and timetable changes, updating our Ticketer ticket machines and overseeing vehicle cleanliness.

“Over the past four to five years we have rented parking space in the yard to Stagecoach. The number of vehicles it keeps here has varied from nine to 12 and it uses our fuelling, washing and restroom facilities. It appreciates the security we can provide and its drivers are pleasant and get on with our staff. It’s an arrangement that has worked well. There have been others renting space including Nottinghamshire County Council which used to park minibuses here.”

Quality vehicles

“This was just a coach business when I started with my brother and sister in the early 1980s,” said David. “We didn’t have any bus routes. Becoming involved in the decision-making process was gradual and our father only stopped coming into work around five years ago. It is good still being able to talk to him. Like Dave he’s a very good, pragmatic engineer.

“The fleet is changing all the time, but we have some good vehicles now. Because of the size of the mortgage we took on by moving to Brunel Business Park, investment dropped for about five years. That meant that although we were running from excellent new premises, our rivals perhaps had better coaches for a time. We started reinvesting again when we could, but had to cut back in 2016 because it was such a poor year. Nevertheless, we’ve bought again this year and I think we’re where we want to be for the moment.

“Our preference for frontline coaches is to buy new or nearly new. The Mercedes-Benz Tourismo is a product we know and the ones we run have been very reliable. It’s not very often that anything goes wrong with any of them. Coaches cost a lot to buy so we try and think as much as we can from a customer perspective. We think Tourismo seats are the best.

“A concern for a time was that all of our Tourismos were 49-seaters. The 53-seaters we operated dated back to when we were based at the old premises so if a school wanted more capacity we could only offer a vehicle that was quite old. We were able to buy a 53-seat Tourismo that had been new to Redwings in London and it has been very busy ever since. We’ve also just bought a 10-year-old 53-seat Plaxton Volvo B12B from EvoBus that came from P & O Lloyd Coaches in North Wales.

“Our bus preference is mainly for Optare Solos although we’ve replaced the Darts we operated with Enviro200s. There have been a few electrical issues to deal with, but I think we’ve sorted them now. We steer clear of other types of bus because we don’t want too much of a mismatch in the fleet.”

Excursions and tours

“When business opportunities present themselves you can either grasp the nettle and go for them or let them go,” observed David. “We started doing our own holidays in the 1970s and the first programme I was involved in was in 1989 when my predecessor became ill. I remember her telling me that I’d done a good job taking over and that meant a lot to me at the time. However, as I’ve become progressively busier with running the business Helen (Kay – Office Manager) has taken over. I still enjoy talking to customers and continue to do my best to look after many of our big private hire clients.

“A challenge for us over the years has been competitors that offer unbelievably cheap holidays. Some of them ran nice coaches, but when they go out of business we usually discover that they owed money all over the place. There was one that I was told had a monthly interest bill on its vehicles of around £28,000. It’s what we’re up against all of the time. While poor companies maybe do eventually go out of business, they still hurt us along the way.

“What we focus on is giving people nice holidays with excursions included. That might be a train ride or a visit to a historic house. We try not to make them too specific because that can restrict the potential audience, but if we hit on the right theme we can have some really good successes.

“We don’t focus too much about price although inevitably our cheaper holidays sometimes do sell better. Hotels are rated in our brochure. If one is two stars and another four stars, the two star isn’t going to be as good as the four star, but people don’t always understand that. There’s still a tendency to look only for the lowest price.

“Overall we’ve built up a good relationship with the hotels we use. Often we’ve started using one because it had been booked by one of our private groups. If 40 people have gone there and had a good time, we know it is okay. Being asked to organise tours for groups used to happen a lot, but it’s less so now. There aren’t so many clubs as there used to be. People seem to have other distractions.

“Even when people have liked a particular hotel, we’ll sometimes change it because they can become tired of staying at the same place or location. We often use the better Alfa hotels because they’re experienced in handling coach groups and they’re good value for money.

“Over the years we’ve had ideas for holidays that have worked really well, but also some that haven’t. What is going to work is always difficult to predict. If I put money on what I thought was going to be most popular each year, I would probably lose it.

“Tours to the Isle of Man would be a good example. When we first put one on we only had 18-20 who booked so I didn’t repeat it the following year. I then had so many requests I reinstated it, but again only 18-20 went. I’d already committed for the following year and was going to cancel, but it went ahead anyway and actually went full. The following year it was the same, but the year after that it was back down to around 18 again. I dropped it and we had lots of requests again and so it has gone on over the years. I have to say that in more recent times it has settled down to 30 plus.

“Like a lot of other tour operators, we’re finding that foreign trips aren’t attracting the support they use to because of the popularity of cheap cruises and flights. Trips we ran to places like Sorrento used to go packed, but not anymore so we’ve stopped doing them. If we knew we were going to have a good load we’d still do it.

“I think there’s only been one year when we didn’t cancel any of our holidays, but it’s never been more than six out of around 60 annually. I think the worst year was in 2009 after the financial crash. It’s important to always look at the bigger picture. Cancel a trip and the people who have booked may be lost forever. What’s more they tell all their friends that Travel Wright cancelled their holiday.

“Years ago I remember serving a customer that couldn’t decide whether to go to the Isle of Wight or Bournemouth. Both holidays were about the same price, but the Isle of Wight already had 44 booked on it while it was just 16 to Bournemouth. In the end they booked for the Isle of Wight.

“I would have liked them to have gone to Bournemouth, but my dad explained that it didn’t matter. Add the two holidays together and divide by two is what he said, pointing out that we would still make the same amount. It’s just that one tour would make something, the other wouldn’t. His advice has stayed with me. What’s important is that people have a good holiday and over the past three years in particular we’ve had some fantastic feedback. We’re carrying around 1,500 people annually, but I would say that we’re getting less than 10 complaints a year, which we’re very pleased about.

“Holiday questionnaires are a very useful way of finding out whether it’s just someone being difficult or there was a genuine flaw with the trip. Some aspect of the food is the most obvious complaint. If someone reports that it was poor and everyone else says that it was good or excellent, it’s clear they just didn’t like it. It’s just something that they wanted to get off their chests, but if there really is an issue we can do something about it.

“Usually the biggest problems we have are ferries not operating when they should. We had a very near miss in the Isle of Wight a couple of years ago when we literally got the last ferry that operated that day because of bad weather. All the other coaches were left on the shoreline. Navman tracking means we know where all our vehicles are and that’s particularly useful when one of the holiday coaches is coming back to base. Our feeder drivers can be ready.

“Our market is very much in and around Newark and we have a very good database. They say that there’s going to be twice as many pensioners in 2050 as there are today so technically the customer base is growing if that is the age group you’re trying to reach, although we do have younger people coming through as well.

“We have had customers who came into our reception and book half a dozen trips at once, continuing to do that for years. We would find out that they had gone into a home and then read in the paper that they had passed away, but sometimes we’ve been able to keep in touch. I remember when we opened our new premises we fetched one of our oldest and most valued passengers Alice Dawson here to show her what we’d done. She was in her late 90’s at the time but had only stopped travelling with us due to ill health a few years before that.

“While we have no plans to grow our holiday programme we have expanded our day trips not least by specifically targeting two of the largest villages near Newark, Collingham and Southwell. People from Southwell hadn’t had the opportunity to go anywhere and we’ve had some success. As with our holidays, we have had people over the years showing real loyalty, booking at least one excursion a week and putting on the right ones does sometimes lead to holiday bookings as well.

“Andrea (Wagstaff – Transport Scheduler) has taken charge of our Facebook site and her efforts are really starting to work for us. When we highlight that we have spaces on an excursion we might get seven, eight or 12 likes. If those people have 30 or 40 friends each, it’s helping to get the message across and the number of followers we have is growing.”

Better fortunes

“There is no doubt that this is a tough industry, but the fundamentals of what we do have not changed over the years,” David explained. “We go where the work is. Our customers are at the forefront of everything we do and we do like to look after our staff. We like to do the job properly and that includes keeping DVSA onside. I can sleep well at night because I know our vehicles are properly maintained.

“Running the business as it should be run costs money and we’re always up against those that have a different approach. The other day I quoted a school for a job in March 2018 to Liverpool that we have done for the last five years. I looked at what we’d quoted last year and it was £915. When I worked it out this time it came to £940 – not too cheap, not too dear or so I thought.

“Another operator quoted £800. Five years ago we’d done the job for £850. I rang the school and apologised for being a bit dearer than the opposition. I explained that if they were going to get a lovely coach that was well maintained from a reliable company with a good safety record I wouldn’t be able to beat what they were being quoted. However, I could do the work for the same price as we’d done it this year, which was £915. I also mentioned what having an OCRS score meant and offered to send ours as well as details of DVSA’s most recent visit when the inspector told me that it was one of the best reports he’d ever compiled.

“I sent the information and the lady organising the trip spoke to the head teacher. The result was they booked with us. So often we’re not getting those results anymore and the competition still cost us £25. Some customers sadly aren’t bothered whether we have nice premises and uniformed, professional drivers; unfortunately a cheap price is often the key factor.

“There are years when we try so hard, yet we find that we have worked for virtually nothing. Then there are other times when we seem to do really well without making any particular changes to what we’re doing. That definitely wasn’t the case in 2016. It was the worse year I can ever remember largely as a result of those county council cuts that decimated the bus side of our business. We’re still picking up the pieces now.

“I know local authorities have their own problems and priorities. They’re under enormous pressure to spend money carefully, but we often feel that they only want to talk to us when they want something from us. However, I’m pleased that our local council no longer holds e-auctions. Tenders come on an email now and we then bid accordingly.

“What we’ve done is develop other sides of our business. We have some good new school contracts starting in September including work for a local academy. It’s a rural location so nearly all of the older children have to be bussed there. We’re contracted by the school and that’s who the parents pay. We have also won some baths contracts in Grantham and one of our new contracts goes as far as Stamford which will hopefully open new opportunities for private hire.

“Private hire work is definitely picking up and that has helped us turn the corner. A memorable win was taking a party to the Cheltenham Gold Cup for technology company Timico. It has premises next to ours in Newark and is Gold Cup sponsor for four years. Our own total annual sponsorship budget is modest but we try and do 20-30 a year between £100-200 each, supporting where we can those who have helped us.

“It’s nice when everything works in our favour. Recently there was a school in Grantham that hired a coach between morning and afternoon runs for a local trip to Belton House – a distance of about five miles. It was raining the day they wanted to go so that morning they decided to cancel. Could they transfer to another day without a cancelation fee? They’re a good customer so we arranged that for them. No sooner had that happened there was a call about a rail replacement at Grantham. We do quite a lot of that sort of work for Stagecoach and others. Our coach went on standby and we were paid more for that than we would have received for the private hire which we hadn’t lost anyway. Hurrah!”

Challenges and rewards

“Annually we undertake around 70-80 private hires to London,” said David. “Some of that is because operators in this area don’t have the right vehicles to comply with the LEZ (Low Emission Zone). We’re okay at the moment, but only have one Euro 6 coach so hopefully the introduction of the ULEZ (Ultra Low Emissions Zone) won’t happen until 2020. However, if it is brought forward, we will have to deal with it. I don’t think the proposed daily charge is going to be much different to what the daily depreciation would be on a new coach.

“It’s becoming increasingly hard for our drivers to avoid getting a £65 fine in London. Yellow box junctions are a nightmare. We understand how difficult it is for them and have what I think is a very good arrangement. It obviously depends on circumstances. I’m not going to let a driver off if they’ve done something silly, but if they get something like a box junction fine we’ll pay it. A little bit is knocked of their Christmas bonus, but they can earn that back by doing other good things.

“Congestion in Newark is dreadful at the moment because of essential work on the sewage drains. I have to say that Severn Trent has been very good in keeping us informed about what’s going on, but there are still traffic lights and delays everywhere. It’s chaotic.

“Sometimes Newark becomes gridlocked anyway because of what happens on the A1 dual carriageway. One of our main routes, the 67, serves Collingham and what’s happening with the roundabouts around the A1 can have a major impact. It’s not unknown for the 1548hrs departure still not to have left Newark when it should be making the 1708hrs departure.

“The new electric train barriers at Newark Castle can be another problem. If they get stuck in the down position, someone has to come from a long way off to fix them which obviously brings the town’s traffic to a stop.

“But there are rewards. For example, we have customers who use our Collingham bus services virtually every day. It’s a big village so there are always plenty of passengers going to and from there, but in the little villages beyond that point ridership is much lower. In agreement with Nottinghamshire County Council we use the pre-bookable facility that Distinctive Systems provides us with to enable passengers on that sparsely populated section to book the day before. That means the driver doesn’t have to go round all the villages needlessly and those travelling have a more direct journey.

“Our drivers in that route know their regulars so one of them decided to brighten things up by having a French week. He only talked in French and they all had a whale of a time. We might only be carrying a few people, but the routes we operate are vital to those who use them. It makes all the cuts that have been made all the harder to accept, but we have no choice.

“That connection we have with passengers isn’t just on the local bus services. Another of our drivers likes to put on a Santa costume when he’s driving the last school run before Christmas. The little children he’s carrying love it and long may it continue. As I’ve already said, there’s nothing we like more than giving people great holidays as well. We employ staff who go the extra mile and it’s that spirit that keeps me going. Good staff and good customers – that is what it’s all about and think my brother and sister would agree with me.

“We do know what we’re doing and with a bit of luck we’ll be here for a bit longer yet. Everyone needs luck when they’re in business, but you can make your own luck. We’re different to a lot of companies today because we keep to the old values we know. We have that customer focus and we still care about the people who work for us.”

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