Safety and Security

Our goal is zero injuries.

Safety is one of our core values. We work constantly to improve health and safety conditions and reduce injury to our employees, passengers and third parties. Safety is led by the Executive Safety Committee chaired by the Chief Executive. Our message is simple: 'If you cannot do it safely, don't do it.'

Injury Prevention

Injury Prevention forms the basis for our safety programme. We believe all injuries are preventable and acknowledge our responsibility to employees to work safely and conduct our operations as safely as possible. We also encourage all employees to take personal responsibility for their own safety and the safety of those around them.

All our employees receive regular safety briefings and training. We promote safety culture and celebrate best practice at our annual safety conferences and awards ceremonies in both the UK and North America.

All our bus drivers are trained in the Smith System Defensive Driving technique which focuses on safe anticipatory driving. Route risk assessments are also an important tool in training drivers and identifying potential hazards.

We made a number of key developments this year:

• We introduced DriveGreen technology to all our UK buses. Although designed to achieve fuel efficiency improvements, the technology also promotes safer driving and has helped us to reduce collision rates and passenger injury.
• A new online safety training tool is being completed in UK Bus which will give employees a comprehensive safety training profile.
• We have introduced a new system of risk profiling for our drivers to ensure they receive appropriate levels of monitoring and support.
• We are working with the Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) to develop the Safety Climate Tool for application in UK Bus operations.
• Working with Aberdeen University, our Signals Passed at Danger (SPAD) working group has been looking at global best practice to identify what more we can do to eliminate SPADs.
• We have worked with the National Safety Council in North America to raise awareness of distracted driving.
• In First Student we developed new driver training programmes to reduce the risk of sleeping children.

This year we have continued to improve our safety performance. We have achieved an 11% reduction in Lost Time Injury Rate and a 6% reduction in collisions.

The improvements in our safety performance have been overshadowed by the fact that there were four employee and five passenger fatalities this year. Three of the employee deaths resulted from road traffic accidents or collisions. The fourth resulted from inappropriate behaviour by an employee while at the depot. Two of the passenger deaths were due to road traffic accidents and three were due to severe falls. Three passenger fatalities occurred in North America and two in UK Bus.

We deeply regret all these incidents and will strive continuously to prevent their occurrence.

Click here to read about our safety initiatives in our operating companies.