Cardiff-based operator New Adventure Travel has been ordered to pay a financial penalty of £17,550 and given a formal warning by Traffic Commissioner (TC) Nick Jones after failing to operate a number of registered local services and not adhering to the registered timetable of a number of services’ punctuality standards.
New Adventure Travel had been called before the TC after Bus Users Cymru reported the company for failing to run services and punctuality issues after conducting multiple monitoring exercises on eight routes over 12 months.
Additional monitoring was carried out by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) on three of the services.
The TC also received a report from a DVSA Vehicle Examiner (VE) into the company’s vehicle maintenance procedures.
During an inspection in August 2018, the VE issued prohibitions to four of the firm’s vehicles, as they were found with defects. He also identified other issues, including with drivers failing to identify defects on vehicles during their daily walk-round checks, as well as the quality of defect repairs.
After hearing evidence from the company about steps taken to rectify matters, the TC approved the use of a new operating centre for vehicles in Builth Wells and granted an increase in the company’s licence authority to 150 vehicles.
New Adventure Travel Group was bought by Singapore-based ComfortDelGro Corporation in February 2018. It operates coaches and buses across four depots in Cardiff, Swansea, Newport and Pontypridd.
