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Innovation and New Thinking PDF Print E-mail

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The logo of Arriva, sponsors of this award 

What is the award for?

This award is designed to recognise the skills and effort required to bring a new product or service to the market, or the application of new thinking to the management, planning, safety or delivery of public passenger transport services.

The Winners

  • Austin Birks from the Diamond Bus Company Kevin Short, Youtextus.com and Austin Birks, Diamond Bus Company Kevin Short from Youtextus.com

Youtextus and Diamond Bus in partnership have introduced a real time information that offers major benefits to both operators and travellers.  Accessible to passengers via mobile phone or dedicated web page, both supported by Google mapping, the free to use service boosted customer confidence and provided Diamond Bus with both valuable daily vehicle movement charts and comprehensive schedule variation reports.

Runner Up

  • Pete Myers, Northern Rail Pete Myers from Northern Rail, runner up in this category

Peter Myers is a passionate, charismatic leader with a brilliant track record ion making very limited resources go a long way to benefit the customer.  Peter is Head of Service Quality for Northern Rail, responsible for customer service strategy, customer relations team, and the debt recovery and prosecutions unit.

The Judges' Verdict

Given the level of innovation that both is happening and needs to happen in the industry, the judges were disappointed that there was not a wider field of entries for this award. However, they felt that both the entries judged were of high quality and would certainly have merited inclusion in a wider field.

In deciding to award the winners' prize to Kevin Short and Austin Birks, the judges were greatly impressed by the leadership being shown by two smaller enterprises in this vital field. The use of automatic vehicle location systems has been shown to improve the reliability of bus operations and the provision of real-time information via mobile phone and/or a dedicated web site offers a huge opportunity to reduce barriers to bus use and help achieve modal shift.

Pete Myers's record of innovation and new thinking has played a major the delivery of Northern Rail's success as a train operator since 2004. Major achievements have included service quality initiatives, guides for the company's customer service standards, a new service disruption strategy and a very successful station adoption scheme. Supporting statements received from senior stakeholder representatives offered powerful testament to Pete's achievements. 

Who could be nominated?

This award was open to anybody working within or in organisations associated with the public passenger transport industry. Nominees could therefore include people working for:

  • transport operators 
  • manufacturers 
  • consultancies 
  • industry suppliers 
  • local authorities

Criteria and Entry Requirements

The judges will be looking for the individual who can demonstrate involvement in the delivery of a new product, service or project in passenger transport during the last twelve months. 

The award will be made to somebody who can demonstrate key skills in innovation and new thinking, including but not limited to:

  • effective team and project management

  • delivery of noticeable and quantifiable benefits to a company, authority or operator. Such benefits might include, but are not limited to:

    • improved perception of one or more public transport modes

    • improved access to one or more public transport modes, or improved interchange between them

    • stimulation of interest in, or desire for, a public transport product

    • improved efficiency of one or more public transport model

    • improved management of risk

    • better safety management for staff and/or customers

Entries will be judged on the overall quality of the submissions, which should address the above issues.

Terms of Entry

In order to qualify, the nominee is required to:

  • Have worked in, or with, the industry for a continuous period of more than 12 months prior to nomination
  • Possess a clean disciplinary record for at least 12 months prior to the date of nomination
  • Have no unspent criminal convictions
  • Countersign the nomination form to signify their agreement to their nomination for the award.
 
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