Coach driven OPERATOR PROFILE RIDLEYS COACHES. One of Ridleys so far unique pair of 14m Plaxton Panther 63-seat Volvo B11R tri-axles.

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1 Coach driven One of Ridleys so far unique pair of 14m Plaxton Panther 63-seat Volvo B11R tri-axles. ANDY IZATT 16 COACH & BUS WEEK March 14,

2 Jordan Ridley: I saw schools as the bedrock of my business. ANDY IZATT When Jordan Ridley bought his irst coach in 2009 he had no ambition to be anything other than a one vehicle owner operator. Eight years later he runs more than 30 and he gave Andy Izatt an insight into how he has developed his business L ast year Ridleys Coaches of Kenilworth took delivery of an industry irst, a pair of 63-seat 14m Plaxton Panther Volvo B11R tri-axles. Plaxton built the vehicles in response to a speci ic request from Managing Director Jordan Ridley who has a clear understanding of what it takes to meet the expectations of key customers. That insight has enabled him to build a successful business in just eight years that now comprises 31 vehicles including nine bought new over the last 18 months. You can tell from our website that we re a coaching family, observed Jordan. My granddad Jim was a coach driver with Central Coaches of Leamington Spa. My dad, Paul also drove for Central and when it was bought by Mike de Courcey he worked there as well. When I was young I spent quite a bit of time in Mike de Courcey s yard and later at Catterall s of Southam after dad moved there. When I left school aged 15, dad got me a job with Paul Catterall cleaning and helping out. When I was young I d always liked working on mechanical things and I liked being around coaches. Catterall s was a good place to work and once I got my car licence two years later I started ferrying feeder drivers and collecting parts. Paul Catterall paid for me to take my PCV test which I passed around four weeks after my 18th birthday. I drove for him for around four years and really enjoyed it. There s a lot of freedom being a coach driver and I took pride in my regular vehicle, a T-registered Plaxton Excalibur Volvo B10M. It had been bought from Nottingham City Coaches and was in mint condition. I always had in mind that I wanted to be an owner driver and, while driving for Paul took my national transport manager s CPC. I had, and have no interest in going abroad because the rates are so poor. There s enough work in this country. The idea was to stay at Catterall s until my mid 20s to gain experience, but it got to a point where I thought, if I don t do it now, I ll never do it. My dad said the best time to give it a go was when I was still living at home because my costs would be lower. After Christmas 2008 I applied for an O-Licence, started looking for a vehicle to buy, found a place to park it and set up a maintenance contract with a local mechanic. It had to be a B10M and my irst was a Jonckheere that s now at Loughborough being refurbished by Volvo. After that s inished it s going to Duo lex at Brackley for new seats. It s a vehicle I ll never part with. It was 15 years old when I bought it from Allan Vaulter at Moseley in the South for 24,500. Allan really Still rare are the pair of 57-seat Plaxton Panther-bodied two-axle Still rare are Volvo the pair B8Rs. of 57-seat RIDLEYS Plaxton Panther-bodied two-axle Volvo B8Rs. RIDLEYS March 14, 2017 COACH & BUS WEEK 17

3 looked after me and nothing was too much trouble. Finding work for the coach was hard. I did a little bit of advertising and spoke to people that I knew including local operators. I pursued rail replacement and light diversion work, but even so, there were weeks when it didn t leave the yard. I remember asking myself whether I d made the right decision. Paul Catterall gave me work during the summer term when he was really busy. He asked me before anyone else for which I was grateful, but then it went quiet again during the summer holidays. If I remember rightly, it was also quiet during the following winter. I kept busy by offering myself as a self-employed driver to other operators. I d saved the money to buy the coach so wasn t paying inance, but still had to pay for insurance and maintenance inspections. Then suddenly the work started to come in. My coach had been seen out and about and there were a couple of groups that speci ically said they wanted to use a vehicle that said it was from Leamington Spa like mine did. My irst two school contracts for Warwickshire County Council were secured in early 2010 and I upgraded my licence to three discs. One contract was to primary schools at Princethorpe and Knightlow, the other into Rugby schools. They started in May and we still operate them today. Looking back, the prices I tendered were far too low, but I didn t have the costs that I have now and I wanted the work. In 2009 I d missed out on a contract by 1 a day and I didn t want that to happen again. I was busy again and I like being busy. All I knew when I irst started was that I Two Sunsundegui SC5-bodied Volvo B8Rs bought new each seat 41 passengers. DAVID BELL wanted to be an owner operator. Employing other people was a new experience, but luckily the irst couple of drivers that I took on were very helpful and that made life easier. I was only aged 22 and I was managing people who were two or three times my age. They were also taking a chance because new operators come and go all the time. By this point I think I had four vehicles. I love buying. More coaches meant I needed more work and so it went on. One was a 23-seat Mercedes-Benz because I d received a lot of calls from potential customers for that size of vehicle, but it didn t stay long. When I started quoting for work I realised there were plenty others that would do that sort of work for a lot less. Stable business Said Jordan: Operators say you have to have a school or a works contract to give you regular income and I saw schools as the bedrock of my business. My irst tenders had been submitted by paper, but the contracts we secured in 2010 had been the result of an e-auction. For those initial rounds of e-auctions, operators just drove the price down, but that changed when a couple of them went out of business. Winning school contracts meant our name became much better known and the We work a lot in London especially in the summer and there was one Saturday when we had 15 vehicles there This Volvo B11R Sunsundegui SC7 bought new has a 53-seat executive specification. RIDLEYS 18 COACH & BUS WEEK March 14,

4 Four Plaxton President-bodied Volvo B7TLs in the current fleet all have seatbelts. RIDLEYS As someone who enjoys driving, Jordon Ridley has clear views on what makes a good coach driver. RIDLEYS keen to make a good impression and made a presentation that showed what we could offer. We secured four contracts which were on top of four additional ones I d just taken on for the county council. Luckily I d already applied to upgrade our O-Licence, but it was a massive investment in such a short period of time and took a lot of organising. We only do work which we can make money on. I d rather my vehicles were out on school runs making a little bit of pro it than going say to Scotland and back and not making anything at all. Yes, there are inance payments, insurance and road tax to pay, but if a coach is sitting in the yard it s not going to breakdown or suffer a puncture. It s not going to get damaged. We will work for anyone whether it s a school, company, a corporate client or a bunch of lads going on a night out. We don t mind who so long as the money is right. I know our irst two contracts were at low prices, but we could sustain that because we were small and we didn t have vehicles on inance. I think over the years we have tended to end up with contracts that others don t want. It might be a requirement for a double-decker or 70-seater, or be because of the length of the route. Our irst double-decker contract in 2011 was secured because we were the second lowest bidder and the lowest had ceased to trade. Every contract we ve taken on over the last few years have been at good money. We put in our price and if we get it and it s higher than what we would run for normally we re not going to put a lower price in just for the sake of it. E-auctions have worked quite well for us. We have tried touring. We tried working for two or three UK tour operators, but I just couldn t see how operators could make any money from the rates on offer. Just in case we were missing something, dad drove two and so did I. Then we took on a couple more for our drivers to do. One trip to Oban came back at a loss. Others just made a very small amount. We had to say to the tour companies that unless the rates changed, we didn t want any more work. My Of ice Manager is my uncle, Nigel arris who runs the of ice with Luke Lewis who I m putting through his transport manager s CPC this summer. Luke is only 22, but has an enormous amount of knowledge. Nigel amount of work we undertook escalated because of that. The 30 vehicle line up we have now is sustained by 25 school contracts. Of those 16 are with Warwickshire County Council, six are for the Warwick Independent School Foundation and the remainder with Princethorpe College which came to us last summer. Probably the biggest jump in the size of operation was in the summer of 2014 when I had six weeks to obtain eight descent vehicles and recruit a similar number of drivers. We were running 12 vehicles at the time. We had been approached by Warwick Independent School Foundation about work that hadn t come up for many years. I was One of two 15m Plaxton Panther Volvo B12BTs that Caetano up-seated to 71-seats. DAVID BELL 20 COACH & BUS WEEK March 14,

5 The one-bay workshop was erected in 2011 at a cost of 15,000. ANDY IZATT is exploring new directions for the business because we know there s work out there we could do. One area that he s looking at is cruise transfers because we have got the vehicles to do that sort of work now. We want to see what the opportunities are. We work a lot in London especially in the summer and there was one Saturday when we had 15 vehicles there. The majority of the leet is now LEZ (Low Emission Zone) compliant. Mayor Sadiq Khan s plans to bring forward the ULEZ (Ultra LEZ) are one of the reasons we made such a big investment in new vehicles recently. I don t think it will be long before other cities follow. Last August we had 14 coaches out for nine days on rail replacement, but when that inished we only had two or three working each day for the remainder of the month. It s a great time to have the older ones parked up because we can catch up with repaneling and repaints. When the schools are in, our deckers are amongst the busiest vehicles so there s time to give them a tidy up too, but I would like to see all of the newer coaches out more in August We have about 28 full time drivers at the moment and another eight or nine part timers who we can call on. The strong loyalty of at least 25 of those provides us with a very stable base. When we recruit we always take the candidate for a test drive to make sure they can drive to our standards. They also need to be good with people and of a tidy appearance. I ve just spent 5,000 giving everyone new uniforms. I think the Driver CPC is a good idea because everyone needs additional training. I own a coach company and I don t know everything, but I think it needs to be more practical because that s what most drivers understand. We re looking at potential new providers at the moment with that in mind. Volvo preference Our workshop was built in 2011, Jordan continued. It cost 15,000 which was a lot of money for me then. My dad had also been a mechanic for Catterall s and he became my head mechanic at that time. It meant we could do most of our maintenance in-house although we use Volvo at Coventry for heavier requirements. Because we now run around 30 Volvos, the prices we re charged are quite reasonable. Volvo warranty is also very good. I think my preference for Volvo goes back to my time at Catterall s. I enjoyed driving B10Ms in particular because I knew they would always get me home. With B12s my preference has always been for a rear engine, but I have bought three B12M Van Hools that have all been really good vehicles. B12s need to be looked after. We ve skipped the B9Rs, but we operate both B8Rs and B11Rs. I think the B11R is nearly as good a vehicle as the B10M. Our 70-seat coaches have been fantastic earners. There are seven in the leet now although that s soon to become nine as two Van Hool Volvos will be up-seated by Swansea-based Cogent in the summer. Cogent has already converted four for me. It s a good company to deal with and does a great job. The pair to be converted are 48-seaters, a capacity that is no use to us. The only 49-seater we have is a Volvo 9700 which is up for sale. It s a lovely coach, but when our customers book they expect at least 53 seats. I bought my irst 15-metre Plaxton Panther B12BT because I wanted a 70-seater that wasn t three-by-two. It was quickly followed by another with both 07-plates coming through John Dunn at Caetano, Heather. We said we didn t want the toilets so John had them removed and up-seated to 71. Plaxton has said that it can build us a new 71-seater and I hope to order one, possibly two next year. If that happens, we ll still keep one of the 07-plates. Everyone uses the 15-metre coaches. They can do anything which is what I like about them. Yes, there are only certain drivers who can drive one, but they re out on schools every day. The money they earn on private hire is so much better than a 12m coach. They use only marginally more diesel, but we can charge an additional 250. In the summer they can earn a four igure sum daily. Four years ago I said I wanted some bigger executive vehicles with toilets because we were losing work to competitors with 61-seaters or double-deckers with toilets. That s when we bought a mid-life exec 57-seat 14m B12BT tri-axle Jonckheere from Volvo. It s always busy and so I started making enquiries about buying a new 14m 61-seat exec. Simon Wood (Plaxton Regional Sales Manager Central England & Wales) said, how about a 14m Plaxton Panther Volvo B11R tri-axle? It was a new product for Plaxton that hadn t been done before, but I said that we would go for that and bought two last year. In fact Plaxton was able to it 63 seats. I was worried about legroom, but we had the measurements, checked and it was ine. We had just ordered a pair of 57-seat Pantherbodied two-axle B8Rs and I think we were one of the irst to have that combination as well. There s a marginal additional cost with a tri-axle an extra axle, two tyres and another set of brakes to maintain, but our Jonckheere tri-axle hadn t given us any problems so we were happy to buy more. It s possible to turn a 14m rear-steer coach in the same space as most 12ms. With a tri-axle there s no question Older coaches include this 53-seat Van Hool-bodied Volvo B10M new in RIDLEYS 22 COACH & BUS WEEK March 14,

6 The only non Volvo in the fleet is a Plaxton Cheetah XL-bodied Mercedes-Benz Atego. DAVID BELL over weight and I think more operators are buying them because of that. Because our three 57-seaters are so busy, the next coaches I buy will be more with the same seating capacity probably more Jonckheeres if I can because the quality is there. The rest of the full si e coach leet are 53-seaters. Most have toilets although there is one or two that don t including a 1994 Van Hool B10M that I can t part with because it s so reliable. We ve just rebuilt its boot from the back axle, changed some of the lower panels and give the body a lower half respray. Large and small There are ive double-deckers in the leet, said Jordan. In fact, I would say that our irst bespoke vehicle was the East Lancs-bodied Scania that I bought in Two of our B7TLs were refurbished with lap-belts by BASE before we bought them from Volvo. We then bought another pair direct from Go-Ahead London and had them refurbished with new seats with three point belts by Rowan Telmac which displayed one of them at Coach & Bus Live in Some schools request vehicles with three point belts so we wanted a mixture. Having our vehicles featured by the name we give them, speci ication and in pictures on the website has proved very popular with potential hirers. All the names have a meaning. For example, the Sunsundegui SC7 Volvo B11R we bought new is called Al ie after my little boy. One of our two 41-seat Sunsundegui SC5 midi coaches is called Little Fred as that is my nickname for Al ie. The other SC5 is called Baby Joe because that s Al ie s best friend. Agatha, a 57-seat Plaxton Panther -bodied Volvo that has since left the leet, was named after a competition amongst the school children who regularly travelled on it. The SC5s and the Plaxton Cheetah XL that we bought new last year serve a growing market and are rarely in the yard. If we send one of them to London we only charge a little bit less than for a full size coach. One of the SC5s has returned 16mpg while the Cheetah regularly touches 18-19mpg. Our doubledeckers and the midis are actually the busiest vehicles in the leet, but I wouldn t want too many. There s a market, but it s only so big. Looking forward I wouldn t like the business to become any bigger because I don t want to lose the quality of service we provide, said Jordan. It is a big beast now. Eighteen months ago the leet was virtually paid for, but we have a bit of inance on the new vehicles. It s important to have them because they make a statement. They get people talking about us and making bookings. I like to be in control. My wife Becs and I would spend every hour here. If that meant starting at 0400hrs and not inishing until 2100hrs so be it, but now we have children we have a different perspective. I m still here at 0600hrs, but try and be away by 1800hrs so I can be with my family. I don t think we use our CPT (Confederation of Passenger Transport) membership as much as we could. I should make time to go to more of the meetings, but again it s inding time. They re all reasons why I employ Nigel and Luke. We re hoping to move to a new site later this year the third we have tried to purchase. It will be a shame to move from where we are now because we get on well with all the local businesses, but it will give us much more space and better facilities. I m also hoping to get a couple of projects on the go with old vehicles. What I really enjoy is acquiring something that has been neglected and making it good again and we ve done that with several of our coaches. I d quite like to have a Leyland National and I d really like a Routemaster. Then there s my irst Jonckheere Volvo which I ll keep taxed, insured and MOT d for special occasions. Al ie will hopefully learn to drive on that. He s only two years old now, but he s already showing an interest. I am optimistic about the future, but I do think the industry is going to change. I can t see councils continuing to support school services. We re already running a doubledecker commercially on a route that had previously been supported by Warwickshire County Council and I can see that happening much more. I think there will be more works contracts as well because some companies are struggling to staff their businesses locally. My one concern is how computerised vehicles are becoming. Are we going to be able to run what we buy new now reliably in 20 years time on school services? When I started operating in 2009, I would never have expected to be where I am now. It has certainly been a rollercoaster. One day you can be on top of the world, the next at rock bottom. That s very much a feature of this industry. I do still love driving, particularly the bigger coaches. It s the challenge and I don t think I ll ever want to give that up. March 14, 2017 COACH & BUS WEEK 23