OXFORDSHIRE’S BUSINESS COMMUNITY TAKE NOTE As operator of a comprehensive network of services in the city, in addition to express coach services to Heathrow and Gatwick airports, Oxford Bus Company’s role in keeping the people of Oxford moving for nearly 140 years can easily be underestimated. B4 met with Managing Director, Phil Southall, to discover that business specific services are becoming an increasingly established element of the company’s impressive portfolio, but they need more support.
In addition to the city and airport services, readers will be familiar with the BROOKESbus service which Oxford Bus Company (OBC) operates in partnership with Oxford Brookes University, not to mention the popular park&ride service which connects five car parks to the city centre. But less is known of four services which are designed to support Oxfordshire’s business community, as Phil explains. “We are really keen to promote our services which support business and highlight how the business community can engage. There are four key solutions as follows: a new Airline service which can cater for business groups; the business support services that our sister company, City Sightseeing, can provide; the science transit shuttle from Oxford to Harwell; and finally, the Pick Me Up service which really needs the support of business to help it continue to operate..
Airline – Heathrow and Gatwick Airport services “We have just invested £3.3 million in eleven new state of the art coaches. We’re providing a prestigious and luxurious service with all the creature comforts on like Sat Nav (which tells you how long it’s going to take you to get to the airport); luxury seating where you can actually pull your seat out if you want a bit of space between you and the person next to you; we’ve got standard services like Wi-Fi, USB ports for device charging and we’ve also put tables in for customers’ laptops and cups of coffee. “So we’ve taken a lot of the improvements from the city buses onto the new airport coaches. The feedback has been excellent and we have obviously gone to the next level to try and provide something exceptional and a luxury experience.
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“We are also starting a new high quality coach hourly Airline service from 29th March and whilst it doesn’t come to Oxford directly, it will benefit Oxfordshire businesses. The Wycombe Airline will run from High Wycombe bus station to High Wycombe train station, then to the Handy Cross Park and Ride facility, down to Maidenhead and into Heathrow. So if you’re trying to get to Heathrow from places like Banbury or towns and villages that are on the Chiltern rail line, you have a “RailAir” service from High Wycombe train station to Heathrow which cuts out Oxford and London completely, thus alleviating some of the transport strain in the city centre. In addition, customers who live in the south of the county might want to drive to Handy Cross and park their car there and catch the Airline. This will help those customers who get on / off the bus at Lewknor but have nowhere to park, which is why Handy Cross Park and Ride is such an attractive option.
Oxfordshire area. “Time-wise we can get from most places in Oxford to Heathrow within an hour, and to Gatwick within two hours, congestion permitting. It’s comparable with rail because by the time you’ve got to the station and then changed trains at Reading or London, going direct to either airport in the timeframes mentioned is quite powerful. People often miss that key link to the airport is already there. Obviously it runs every thirty minutes to Heathrow all year round and is enhanced to every twenty minutes at the busiest times, and to Gatwick it’s hourly, so it’s a very comprehensive service.”
“We also have a new facility for groups on the Airline website so we can handle requests for groups to Oxford. We can help you to co-ordinate group movements from both Heathrow and Gatwick and the chances are we can also improve on price. If you have people in a group coming in dribs and drabs in one direction, they can come on any coach that we operate and if they want to go back as a group, we can help with that and vice versa. “Similarly schools have movements to and from the airports, especially the international language schools. We’re trying to encourage them to book with us rather than book expensive taxis and other transfers. We’re encouraging them to talk to us and have the flexibility of having group travel in both directions or just in one direction. Please do talk to us as we can provide bespoke solutions to suit the needs of the business community to ensure that the Airline is the service of choice to get to Heathrow and Gatwick from Oxford and the wider
City Sightseeing
City Sightseeing – Business Support services “We took City Sightseeing over at the back end of 2017. As a company we are very much engrained in the tourism market having been founding Ambassadors of Experience Oxfordshire and the recently launched Oxford Pass.
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