The Go-Ahead Group

We're pleased to have signed a temporary agreement today to operate and maintain the Stockholm Metro, known as the Tunnelbana, from November 2025. Connecting Stockholm, our joint venture with ComfortDelGro will be responsible for over 350 million passenger journeys annually. Our partnership brings together the strengths of two companies in rail, urban transport and infrastructure. We look forward to operating the Tunnelbana in collaboration with the Stockholm Transport Administration. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/dqdXVAj4

We are pleased to announce our new partnership with CitySwift, a transformational public transport performance platform used to make timetables more efficient and maximise service reliability. Commenting on the partnership, Matthew Carney, CEO, Go-Ahead Bus, said: “Care for our customer and care for our community are two of our values at Go-Ahead. We recognise that buses are an essential service for many of our customers and communities, so continually improving these services is vitally important to us. We are committed to continuously improving service reliability and punctuality for the tens of millions of customers who use our services across the country. Using the CitySwift AI-powered platform to optimise our schedules and timetables will help us achieve this.” Read more here: https://lnkd.in/e_8tTzhH

We were proud to be part of the annual Women in Bus and Coach (WiBC) summit in Manchester last week. WiBC is an initiative that aims to create a national network to encourage, represent, support, and retain women in the bus and coach profession.   Earlier this year, we launched Go-Ahead Women and at the summit, Carolyn Ferguson FCIS, Company Secretary at The Go-Ahead Group shared insight into our journey to date, reflecting on how we are bringing in more inspirational women into our workforce, with overarching targets which include delivering gender equality by 2035 and creating an improved and more inclusive working environment at our depots.   WiBC has made significant progress in the last 12 months and the summit set out the positive, pioneering work the group have developed, including the official launch of an Irish branch, and a Northern branch which is to be imminently launched, both providing a dedicated platform for women in Ireland and Northern England to connect, collaborate and champion equality in the sector.

We're proud to share that a number of our operating companies have been shortlisted as finalists for the 2024 UK Bus Awards that will take place in London this November. Finalists include Go South Coast Ltd, Brighton & Hove Buses and Metrobus, Go Ahead London, Go East Anglia, Go North West and Go North East who have been shortlisted in categories including Top City Operator of the Year, Top Shire Operator of the Year and Marketing Campaign of the Year. The mission of the UK Bus Awards is to recognise, reward and inspire the brilliant people who work within the industry and we're proud to have so many of those inspiring people working within the Go-Ahead Group.

We were pleased to welcome Secretary of State for Transport, Rt Hon Louise Haigh MP to Oxford Bus Company today, part of the The Go-Ahead Group - as we announced our £500m investment that will deliver up to 1,200 zero-emission buses, in partnership with manufacturer, Wrightbus. Partnership is key to unlocking economic growth and we’re proud to be working together with Department for Transport (DfT), United Kingdom and Transport for London to support them in delivering their net zero targets by transitioning to green fleet in regions across England and the capital.  Pictured (L-R) Miguel Ángel Parras, Group CEO, Go-Ahead Group, Carey Stuart, Interim CFO & Group Financial Controller, Go-Ahead Group, Jo Bamford, Chair, Wrightbus, Rt Hon Louise Haigh MP, Transport Secretary, Matthew Carney, CEO (Bus), Go-Ahead Group, Jean-Marc Gales, CEO, Wrightbus and Michelle Barr, Structural Engineering Manager, Wrightbus.

Today, we’ve announced a £500m investment that will deliver up to 1,200 zero-emission buses, in partnership with manufacturer, Wrightbus, and create up to 500 new jobs at the Wrightbus factory in Northern Ireland.   In addition to supporting local job creation in the UK, this commitment has significant environmental benefits, reducing carbon emissions by 96,000 tonnes per year, and with 10 trees planted for every 1 bus.  Further, Go-Ahead will have a dedicated manufacturing line at Wrightbus, ensuring speed and certainty of delivery, accelerating our decarbonisation journey. Go-Ahead will also become a partner of the Wright Technology & Research Centre at Queen’s University, ensuring we remain a leader within the industry.  We are the largest operator of zero-emission buses in the UK, leading the charge to net zero.  Read more here: https://lnkd.in/eAJGZHRT

We are proud to share that our bus operator Brighton & Hove Buses and Metrobus won the award for Best Practice for Diversity, Inclusivity and Accessibility at the National Transport Awards last night. They were also commended for their Regency Route in the Best Bus Service category. In addition, Go-Ahead's bus and rail companies; Go East Anglia, Go South Coast Ltd and GTR (Govia Thameslink Railway) Thameslink Railway were shortlisted for their industry leadership in the following categories: Campaign of the Year, Best Bus Service, Bus Operator of the Year and Rail Operator of the Year. Commenting on the success, Miguel Ángel Parras, group chief executive of the Go-Ahead Group, said “I am proud of our rail and bus teams across the Go-Ahead Group. These awards are a testament to their hard work and dedication which demonstrate how we care for our customers, our environment, and the communities we serve. Our people are the heartbeat of our company and together with our partners in government, we will continue to deliver innovative initiatives and invest sustainably in our rail and bus networks.” Read more here: (https://gloo.to/FOXV)

Working in partnership with the Thomas Pocklington Trust and Sight Loss councils across the UK, our operator Brighton & Hove Buses and Metrobus have supported the development of training materials to educate and inform all bus and coach drivers on how best to support blind and partially sighted passengers.  Brighton and Hove Buses have been instrumental in instigating many positive changes to ensure a more inclusive journey. Their Accessibility and Communities Manager, Victoria Garcia MBE, is part of the Go-Ahead’s 'Accessibility Taskforce' specially formed to listen and learn from the lived experiences of our customers whilst helping to roll out these and other innovative initiatives across our networks. These include equipping our fleet with audio next stop announcements, ‘Helping Hand’ cards which are an effective way for customers to discreetly communicate if any extra assistance is required. We also work together with other local and national charities, including Guide Dogs, to enable their dogs in training to become familiar with the environment of travelling by bus. We take pride in promoting accessibility and inclusivity, having the first public transport operator to be given industry leader status under the Department for Transport (DfT), United Kingdom Inclusive Transport Leaders Scheme.

We are proud to be an industry leader in the transition to zero-emission fleet. This week in Oxford, we have celebrated the successful completion of our award-winning project with 104 zero-emission buses now operating across the city. We’ve made a significant investment of £30 million with additional funding from local and national government. Together with our partners in government, we have delivered transformational change that has already improved the environment, saving more than 4,000 tonnes of carbon emissions per year, benefitting the communities we serve. Between 2024 and 2026, we will be investing £550m in our zero-emission transition, working towards our target of a decarbonised bus fleet across our business by 2035.

We hosted a stakeholder reception in Dublin last week in partnership together with Go-Ahead Ireland and our shareholders, Kinetic and GLOBALVIA to celebrate 6 years of operations in the country. We are proud the achievements of our team at Go-Ahead Ireland who have grown patronage significantly since we started operating bus services in Ireland in 2018. In 2023, there was a 33% year-on-year increase in customer journeys on our services, the highest increase that year in Dublin across all services. We’ve delivered a step change in accessibility, collaborating with the National Transport Authority to invest in and open an innovative, multi-functional space empowering customers with accessibility needs to gain confidence and knowledge before travelling in a real-life scenario. We are continuing to grow the next generation of talent for our business in Ireland, recruiting more apprentices than ever before, this year saw a record number of applications for our engineering scheme. We value our people and our customers, but also our communities too. This year we renewed our partnership with the Dublin Gaelic Athletic Association until at least 2026, comprising nearly 100 clubs and thousands of players. We’re committed to supporting our communities that are at the heart of Go-Ahead Ireland’s network. We’re looking forward to growing our network in Ireland and continuing to connect communities.