The routeone Awards may be four months away, but already the event is more than 50% sold out. Meanwhile last week marked an important milestone along the path to finding this year’s winners when a panel of industry experts met to determine who should be shortlisted.
Having been nominated in the first round of the process to find the best in the UK and Ireland coach and bus industry, entries in all 16 categories have been submitted to the five-man judging panel.
In their two-day session held at the Peterborough offices of routeone, the judges (pictured) deliberated long and hard over the evidence put before them. Their aim was to refine the long list of entries down to a shortlist of around five in each category.
Nevertheless, the panel – former Volvo MD Steve Dewhurst, former Traffic Commissioner Chris Heaps, former Proudmutual director Tony Kennan, former Stagecoach Commercial Director Peter Nash, and former Plaxton Sales Director Kevin Wood – have still got much to do.
Letters go out imminently to all on the shortlists asking some detailed and searching questions that are designed to ellicit key information that can help the judges when they meet in August to make their final, and most important, decisions – i.e. who are the winners.
In the case of finalists for the people awards there will be interviews, while the judges reserve the right to defer other decisions until they have completed site visits and verified information supplied.
Now in its 14th year, the routeone Awards seek to reward excellence and best practice through a judging process that is both rigorous and fair.
Meanwhile, once all the finalists have received confirmation of their success, a full list of the potential winners will be published online and in a forthcoming issue of routeone.
However, there is a longer wait for the release of the eagerly-awaited names of who the judges have voted as the best of the best, because this will be at routeone’s Gala Presentation Evening at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole on 31 October.
And with tickets already being snapped up it is important to remember that this will again be a sell-out event, so early booking is advised.
Find out more: www.routeoneawards.com
