Omnibus founder Peter Crichton has reflected on the recent prominent recognition of his contribution to the bus industry by describing it as “one of the proudest days” of his life.
Mr Crichton was named Gold Winner of the Services to the Bus Industry Award at the UK Bus Awards in November. The accolade recognises both his timetabling and scheduling software that transformed the scheduling process in the 1990s, and the solutions that Omnibus continues to develop in support of the sector.
History in the sector before Omnibus for Peter Crichton
Omnibus was established by Mr Crichton in 1990 with an aim of helping schedulers to “easily produce efficient and workable schedules,” the supplier says.
“Development of the timetable and scheduling software started in the mid-1980s, but it was while working at Shearing as a Traffic Manager (Buses) that I further developed OmniTIMES and OmniBASE,” Mr Crichton continues.
“After being made redundant, I joined Meridian, and part of my role was to liaise with operators on the planned depot allocation software. The operators weren’t too interested in that but expressed a need for scheduling software.
“After I left Meridian, I was free to contact those operators, and some became customers. It was around this time that I got a call from Mark Savelli, who had started working for Citybus in Hong Kong. That eventually led to it being my first overseas customer.”
Since that success, Omnibus has grown to become a well-known and respected supplier of planning software to the bus industry in the UK and further afield. Mr Crichton says that such success is built upon an understanding of the sector. That knowledge has formed a significant part of the development of Omnibus software.
“Our approach was to make the software fit around the way the scheduler worked, and not make the scheduler fit around the computer programme. My view was that the computer should take the drudgery out of the scheduling process, not add to it,” he continues.
Queens Road roots for Omnibus founder
Mr Crichton’s involvement with the bus industry began at an early age, when his father John (pictured, right) was a conductor at Queens Road depot in Manchester, a location that is now home to Go North West (GNW).
That led him to take an interest in the services and routes operated from Queens Road buses, a hobby that was pursued with friends Paul Wreghitt and Jon Brierley. Both of those men would later join Mr Crichton at Omnibus and they remain part of the business.
“I applied to be a Computer Systems Analyst Trainee with Greater Manchester Transport (GMT), but as I showed an interest in buses, I was asked if I was interested in applying to be a Traffic Trainee, which was a trainee scheduler, the job I really wanted,” Mr Crichton continues.
“I was interviewed by Jim Hulme, who developed the manual scheduling course that Omnibus now offers. During the interview, he said: ‘I am a bit worried you’ve got an interest in buses. It might get in the way of your work because it does with some people’. It later transpired that he is a bigger bus enthusiast than me.”
Mr Crichton started with GMT on 16 October 1978. In 1981, as a reward for hard work, he was trained to drive a bus, and from there would often work evening or weekend duties. Today, he is the proud owner of a one-time London Transport AEC Routemaster and a former Manchester City Transport Leyland Titan. The latter has appeared on Omnibus’s stand at Euro Bus Expo in the past.
On 9 May, GNW honoured Mr Crichton’s father at Queens Road, 60 years to the day since he started at the depot in 1962. That left Mr Crichton Sr “lost for words,” something that his son says he also was on the day in November when he received his award.
