A British company which pioneered a special networking website for bus and coach operators in the UK has launched the program in Australia and is hoping to giver smaller operators in particular a way of improving their efficiency and bottom line.
Don’t Travel Empty (DTE) has been operating in the UK for the past ten years and now has around 3000 members after founder Anthony Marett who as a small bus operator recognised that even on busy days his fleet utilisation could be better.
According to Geri Clarke who has been tasked with starting DTE in Australia Marett realised that if that was the case with is own buses it was probably the case with many other fleets.
“DTE was initially aimed at creating a resource for bus and coach operators to reduce the number of empty journeys coaches were making but it has grown into a community of bus operators with a number of tiers and a variety of services including filling empty travel legs, passenger recovery, driver sourcing, vehicle sales, safety plans and critical incident management,” said Geri Clarke.
“Our main aim is to maximise operators profits by reducing the amount of empty journeys their coaches make,” he added.
“Every year, millions of litres of fuel are wasted by coaches travelling empty so your revenue could increase if each of your empty legs were potentially filled with passengers,” said Geri.
Clarke says that DTE is looking to attract bus and coach operators Australia wide and to expand as quickly as possible and will be offering operators a free three month trial to allow them to understand what the program can do and the advantages it can deliver.
“DTE’s suite of management systems can minimise the risk of operating empty legs by matching your needs with those of other operators,” he added.
The DTE program also includes Coach Records Module (CRM) which is designed to streamline an operators business processes and maximise profits with a cloud based system that can be accessed anywhere by laptop, tablet or phone. It also features a Vehicle Maintenance System to organise maintenance of the fleet and to control costs and to aid compliance and report and record collation.
“Emergencies such as having a coach break down and the need to ensure passengers aren’t left in a remote location is handled by DTE to provide swift mechanical assistance and passenger recovery using our data base,” said Geri.
“The aim is to enable small bus operators to perform like a bigger fleet and to provide more streamlined services to operate more efficiently,” Geri added.
“The platform is really for all sizes of operators, it allows small operators an opportunity to perform like a bigger operator with similar resources as the big boys and allows big operators the chance to expand their geographical footprint,” Geri concluded.
Operators interested in DTE can go to the company’s website at www.donttravelempty.comor phone 0011 44 8455485003 ( An Australian number is pending) .
