Arriva London scoops top bus industry award for a second year

Arriva London, one of the capital’s largest bus operators, has scooped a top bus industry award for the second year running.

The operator’s Beddington Farm Garage in South London was named ’London Bus Garage of the Year’ in the UK Bus Awards. This is the second year in a row one of Arriva’s depots has secured the title with Brixton garage picking up the award last year.

The award was made following an independent nomination by Transport for London (TfL) and recognises Arriva’s outstanding work at Beddington Farm.

The judges were impressed by how the garage has embraced major changes. They recognised that operations management was of a consistently high quality, which helped significant expansion in recent years when new contracts have been acquired.

The garage also impressed the judges with its proactive approach to tackling anti social behaviour, working with schools and local police to substantially reduce the number of incidents on its services.

Beddington Farm was the first Arriva garage to hold regular open forums with employees and this, combined with good trade union relations, has given it a very low staff turnover rate and a waiting list of people wanting to work there.

Mark Yexley, Arriva London’s managing director, said: “This award is a tribute to all the efforts of the many people at our Beddington Farm garage. The garage has grown considerably over the last 10 years, throughout we’ve retained a commitment to delivering the best possible service for our customers and to make the garage a great place to work.”

Beddington Farm is an important garage for Arriva’s South London operation as it handles most of its bus repair and refurbishment work, and all of the staff training. The garage employs 280 people and delivers routes 264, 403, 410, 450, 455 and 627.