Nominations for the 2025 routeone Awards have been plentiful, with like-for-like totals thus far above the same point in 2024. In the running are the largest coach and bus operators to the smallest, and people from across those organisations.
If you have not had a notification of nomination and invitation to enter, fear not. The deadline for nominations is 1700hrs on Friday 11 April, and the final few days generate a flurry of last-minute submissions.
After nominations close, judging will start. Matters will culminate at the presentation evening on Thursday 13 November at The Vox at Resorts World Birmingham – a venue that hosted more than 900 coach and bus industry guests for the 2024 ceremony.
Entering requires a submission that will stand up against those of one’s peers. Criteria are clearly defined. The seven judges are all longstanding industry members; they know what great looks like and how to spot it.
While the industry has seen much change in the past five years, appetite to celebrate its achievements and awareness of the benefits of recognition that follow much beyond that has not dampened. The opposite is true.
A record attendance for 2024’s presentation evening and a positive response to a change in venue cemented that, as do the numbers of nominations made and entries submitted since the routeone Awards returned in 2022.
None of this would be possible without the Awards’ roster of partners and supporters from the supply side of the sector. They continue to lend their backing in volume. Besides the primary opportunity to celebrate the industry and its people at the presentation evening, there is also the chance to develop business relationships and make new contacts.
That presentation evening is the pinnacle of the sector’s calendar for this year. Preparations are already well underway. Yet as frequently highlighted by some in the business, coach and bus otherwise tends to get on with its job with little fanfare.
Services are delivered as customers expect; that such a position of little fuss is the norm indicates that competence is a strong point of the industry. As has been said many times, when other modes – largely rail and air – stop, coach and bus comes to the rescue.
The routeone Awards are concerned with celebrating the operators and people making that happen 24/7/365. They are about the best in the business stepping up and showing what the industry does; acknowledging and celebrating how the sector excels at its job, takes pride in doing its best – and is seldom shy about turning a challenge into an opportunity.
Nomination and entry are key to that recognition. Good luck to all involved.
