First Bus, Britain’s leading bus operator, could be in line for a top award voted by young people. The company has been included on the travel shortlist of the ‘Youth 100’, the UK’s top brands according to 18-24s.
The Youth 100 is an extensive piece of research carried out by Voxburner, a youth insights consultancy that reports on 16-24 year olds and the new generation. In total there are 24 categories in this the third year of the research project, which is designed to highlight the views of more than 3,000 young consumers towards the brands they use in their lives.
Managing Director of First UK Bus, Giles Fearnley, said: “At First our overarching aim is to attract more customers. We want new passengers to try travelling with us and infrequent customers to use our buses more often. In order to do that we’ve been working hard to improve bus services for all our customers, especially young people.
“We recognise, for example, the importance of technology to our younger customers. That’s why all our new buses are fitted with complementary wi-fi as standard and by the end of the year all our customers will have the opportunity to use their mobile phones as bus tickets thanks to our M-Ticketing products. We’ve also made sure that young people can access value for money fares and introduced an award winning app so that customers can access timetables and learn more about our services.
“To have been shortlisted at the 2014 Youth Awards, which is a first for First, confirms that our improvements are being recognised and welcomed by young people. It also reflects rising passenger satisfaction scores across our company – indeed Independent Watchdog, Passenger Focus, released results in March 2014 which showed a 5% rise in overall passenger satisfaction across First’s services to 86% since last year’s survey.”
Luke Mitchell, Head of Insight at Voxburner, said: “For young people who have moved away from home to work or study, travels brands such as First Bus fulfill an important need to connect them with their family and friends at home. Brands that offer convenience, value for money and valued extras such as free Wi-Fi, combined with a seamless digital strategy will do well in this year's Youth 100.”
The Youth 100 Awards ceremony will take place in London on Thursday 6 November following the Youth 100 Insights Summit 2014. For more information about Youth 100 visit: http://www.voxburner.com/events/youth100-2014/home.
ENDS
For more information, please contact Niall Dowds, First Bus Head of Communications, on 07860 936671 or email [email protected]
Notes to Editors:
FirstGroup plc is the leading transport operator in the UK and North America with revenues of more than £6.7 billion a year. We employ approximately 117,000 employees and transport around 2.5 billion passengers a year. Our vision is to provide solutions for an increasingly congested world… keeping people moving and communities prospering.
UK Bus
FirstGroup is one of Britain’s largest bus operators with around a fifth of bus services outside London. A fleet of some 6,400 buses carries approximately 1.6 million passengers a day in a huge number of communities including 40 of the UK's largest towns and cities. We operate Greyhound UK providing regular intercity coach services linking South Wales and Bristol Airport, and we also operate some US-style yellow school buses and have a fleet of coaches available for charter. We also operate the Aircoach network in Ireland.