Back-to-office mandates: A building opportunity for coach and bus?

Grand talk of bus franchising and promise of wholesale reform risks overshadowing some parts of the coach and bus industry’s day-to-day work. Moving people from where they are to where they need or want to be will always be its core purpose, not serving as a political chess piece.

Scarcely a week passes without the mainstream media sharing news of a large business ordering office-based staff to spend more time in those offices, rather than working from home. That is not always well received by employees, but the corporate message needs no subtitle: Shape up or ship out, or at least have a good excuse to hand.

With such instruction often comes with more diplomatic cushioning of the blow via various perks. Not all offices are in town and city centres. Many are elsewhere. It is no secret that growth of shuttle provision to those has been a success story for the coach and bus sector. For centrally located workplaces, ‘travel club’ offers for bus services can already prove their worth if the timetable suits – not that it always does.

For corporate shuttles, some operators work directly for the contracting organisation, while others do so via third parties such as Zeelo. In the former case, at least one coach and bus business has carved out a highly worthwhile niche.

More staff back in the office means more call for travel to work, often to places that are tricky to reach by fixed-route bus services. The verdict from some operators of corporate shuttles is that they are ‘good’ work, albeit in need of close attention to detail. Little is the room for error, but the level of take-up in recent years illustrates that there is appetite on both sides for them.

Behavioural psychologist James Clear – who carries a New York Times Best Seller list credit to his name – says that creating a new habit has four stages: Cue, craving, response, reward.

If the coach and bus industry can leverage those parts of the new (or returning) habit of employees consistently travelling to a workplace in good numbers into a worthwhile organic stream of income, the benefits for all are clear. Large corporates have a close eye on their carbon footprints, and collective travel can help them.

There is a major opportunity for coach and bus in harnessing the building momentum of return-to-office mandates, be that via dedicated shuttles or through ‘travel club’ offers on established bus services. Doing so may enable the sector to share in the reward stage of the building of a new habit that James Clear speaks about.