The Oxford Bus Company has been awarded a National Express ‘Golden Spanner’ award after excelling in an annual engineering audit – for the second year in a row.
External inspectors praised Oxford Bus Company engineers for achieving “exceptional standards” – including “good quality inspections” and minimal break downs.
Oxford Bus Company runs the 737 Oxford to Cambridge via Luton and Stansted Airport service on behalf of National Express. In addition to running the service, it maintains the vehicles at its in-house engineering department in Cowley, Oxford, to ensure they are safe, comfortable and reliable.
National Express the UK’s largest coach operator conduct annual audits, including random inspections of vehicles, and confirmed the Oxford Bus Company had earned ‘Gold Standard’, a ranking reserved for exceptional operators. The 2019 Golden Spanner award comes after Oxford Bus Company was awarded the same accolade in 2018 at the National Express network operator awards. Oxford Bus Company was also shortlisted for the most improved operator in 2019.
Paul Hennigan, Service Delivery Director at the Oxford Bus Company, said: “Only a few operators achieve gold standard, as the standards are rightfully extremely high, and we are proud to have been judged to have maintained our exceptional standards again. To have retained this respected award is testament to the hard work and dedication of the excellent engineering team we have.”
Managing Director, Phil Southall, said: “We consistently strive for excellence across the entire business and the engineering team are a superb example of this. It is fantastic to receive such an accolade and our talented team fully deserve the continued recognition for maintaining such high standards.”