In 2012 Kevin Hughes and Mark Drury entered the high-end coach market with Passenger Plus. routeone pays a visit on its 10-year anniversary
Still located next to its first ever client, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, corporate travel specialist Passenger Plus is unmistakably embedded in the high-end corporate world.
The company was founded shortly after the summer Olympics on 4 December 2012. Pfizer was its only contract and it specialised in providing the company with commuter services and DRT during a time when few people had heard of last-mile transport. Over time, it has taken that blueprint of bridging the gap between railway stations and offices, and mobilised contracts at impressive speeds to win new clients. From humble beginnings it now runs a fleet of 45 vehicles on numerous contracts and private hires across England.
The nature of the blue-chip clientele means first impressions count. Thankfully, the company’s modern home in the Surrey Hills helps. “When somebody walks through that door, they’re already halfway towards being on our side,” Managing Director Mark Drury reveals. “Because the kind of people we sell to are the kind of people that live in those kinds of environments. People buy from people like themselves.”
From there, the company relies on extensive experience and a proven formula of embracing better operational procedures. A clear focus is on attention to detail; attractive vehicles that are fit for purpose and which meet the requirements of customers, and well-trained drivers that always understand what is expected of them. Another is Passenger Plus’ use of technology.
The right processes
Being as tech savvy as possible to improve the lives of clients and their workforces was something Mark highlighted during routeone’s last visit in 2017.
Five years further on, he opines that Passenger Plus is “the most professional company” that it has ever been, helped along by Transport and Operations Manager Scott Rattle, who has been instrumental in implementing many of the digital solutions that contribute to the smooth running of the business. That includes driver walk-round apps, tachograph downloads and analysis, and finding its feet naturally with demand-responsive booking systems – including an app that allows passengers to track the vehicles and receive real-time train departures and arrivals.
“As we’ve grown, we’ve embraced technology and systems and certain ways of working that have made life easier,” Mark adds. “We truly are a company that can be run remotely, so we can operate our business model anywhere.”
Evidence of that is how the company has taken on contract work in locations as far afield as Peterborough. Mark describes how a template approach ensures everything that needs to be in place is in place for the beginning of a new customer relationship. “We’ve got to the point where we have a robust management structure, good lead drivers, and everyone knows what they are supposed to do. Scott and the team do a brilliant job of looking after it all – that responsibility is then passed down through the Contract Manager, and to the lead drivers. But it is all about getting the right people in the right place and earning money at the right rate. We have that, which is why, for a corporate buyer, it’s then an easy choice to go with us.”
Passenger Plus also has the advantage of having a long list of high-profile blue-chip clients to put on the table to convince potential customers to sign on the dotted line. To further show that everything is in place, it draws upon Coachmarque, BUSK, JOSCAR and SafeContractor accreditations – and several routeone Awards wins. “The contracts we run go into the millions,” admits Mark. “Buyers do not want to get that wrong.”
This is all fostered by the corporate environment in which Passenger Plus lives. “A profit environment always embraces technology and a lot of the systems and processes that we have in place are a direct result from the kind of customers that we deal with on a daily basis,” says Mark. “And that is something I would say puts us head and shoulders above other coach companies – there are very few people who could put together a package for a corporate like we can.”
It’ s for that reason that Passenger Plus doesn’t intend to mark out the 10-year anniversary with any extravagance. “I’m not sure our customers really care if you’ve been operating for five years, 10 years, or 100 years,” explains Mark. “They’re bothered about what you did yesterday, and the corporate world is very much like that. If you’re not performing, you’re out.”
Young fleet
Young fleetWhat the profit-driven corporate environment also provides is longevity of vehicles, and a youthful fleet. Low mileages give better resale value when it comes time to sell or part exchange. As a result, Passenger Plus has only ever bought two used vehicles over its lifetime.
It achieved a fully Euro VI fleet in mid-2014. That was important both to the company’s image of wanting a new, clean fleet, but also ticked off an essential for the London market to which Passenger Plus is so intimately attached.
Four of its larger vehicles have been replaced this year to be PSVAR compliant, bringing the number of PSVAR equipped vehicles in the fleet to 21. Mark favours fleet homogeneity to help with cost prediction, though isn’t precious about brands if quality is demonstrable. Vehicles that have been in the fleet range from Irizars to Mercedes-Benz Sprinter EVMs and more recently Yutongs. “Much as we all like to provide a nice vehicle that looks good and enhances our product, I don’t really care about the badge, as long as it makes money,” he says.
The system works well for Mark, who also favours finance payments over maintenance costs. The operator doesn’t have its own garage, so vehicles are cared for by outside maintenance contractors: “It’s important that we have new vehicles, and the ones we have bought this year come with a fantastic warranty package.
“We like to get them on repair and maintenance if we can, and we know how much those vehicles are going to cost to run in four years’ time, which helps us price a contract.
“We have a good handle on what our costs will be over the life of any vehicle, and for us that’s important. 85% of what we do is contracted. You have to know your costs, otherwise you don’t make money.”
Consequently, Passenger Plus has proven itself robust in devastating trading conditions. Mark claims the company’s best year was 2019-2020.
“You don’t perhaps realise how right you have it until something like that happens,” he says. “I’m sure most people learned a lot throughout COVID-19, but I’m grateful that we had a way of operating that business that allowed us to carry on doing what we were doing all the way through.”
But nothing remains the same forever, and it cannot be denied that COVID-19 has caused shifts in the corporate market – even if it is just by modified travel patterns.
Passenger Plus already runs one fewer vehicle on a Friday for one client, and there’s the potential that more customers might follow. “Not the end of the world as long as you are covering the cost of that vehicle over five days,” Mark reflects. “We’ll probably be a little bit more agile in matching supply to what demand might be.”
To the next 10 years
With Passenger Plus’ focus on new, cleaner vehicles, and its proximity to the London market, electric coach operation looks likely by 2023. Mark reveals at least one customer is already “a long way down the road” with such conversations and should that blossom, the floodgates will open.
Where Mark described those early years in the mid-2010s as transformative, now it is “steady as she goes” with a constant lookout for opportunities and work in areas further afield encouraged by the right rates. Much of the expansion now is coming down to a lack of operators willing to do the work. “There’s definitely a reticence,” Mark observes. “People don’t want to take any more work on. They can’t find the drivers, so why do more? As we move forward there will be more opportunities for us – not necessarily in our own area.”
One example is a pair of jobs in the Midlands, franchised to another operator through Passenger Plus. Director Kevin Hughes can see this as something the operator will expand upon: “We always said from day one that we would put in place a contracts manager to oversee these contracts, but which are delivered with local resource.”
That’s possible through having built a scalable product that lives on long-term contracts and has assurance from good customers.
And while Mark can express his pride at the business, he reveal she is most proud of the staff that make up the ranks. “We have a team of people who do an excellent job and share our pride in the brand. It’ s taken a long time but we all now see it in the same way. What I’m most proud of is that we have got everybody believing in the product and wanting to do it right all the time. As long as you have that, your company will be successful.”
