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Bus company FirstGroup has its sights set on the school transport market, as it records a healthy balance sheet for the last financial year. In an industry hit hard by the recession, FirstGroup has remained resilient, according to its preliminary results up to 31 March. FirstGroup chief executive, Sir Moir Lockhead, claims much of its financial success is due to the fact that 50% of its revenue comes from contracts. In the US, FirstGroup is the biggest operator of the yellow school buses, with long-term contracts of between three and five years with local authorities – accounting for 25% of the group's sales. Now the company wants to replicate this success in the UK, where it already has some yellow school bus schemes. FirstGroup UK Bus spokesman, Leon Daniels, said: ‘There is huge potential for expansion for us. ‘And the recession is a good time for this because people are focused on what we can do for the community.' FirstGroup's school bus company FirstStudent began piloting the yellow school bus scheme in the UK in 2002, and now runs 18 initiatives with public sector partners across the country from Aberdeen to Basingstoke. The Yellow School Bus Commission, chaired by David Blunkett, concluded last year the introduction of the buses nation-wide could save millions of car journeys. It urged the Government to introduce them for primary schoolchildren living further than one mile from their school and for secondary school pupils living further than two miles from their school. Mr Daniels claims it could easily be economically viable, as he pointed out parents were prepared to spend £1 a visit on a fun mini yellow bus ride for young children outside a supermarket. For the same figure, he says an older child could travel to school by yellow bus, and the sum would be ‘more than halfway to covering costs commercially'.

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BUSINESS

Resilient bus firm wants school ties

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