28 February 2014

Go-Ahead is celebrating its three train companies' strong performance at the Rail Business Awards celebrated last night in London:

Southern won Technology Innovation Award for 'the key' smartcard

The first train company to use smartcards on national rail journeys. Used by bus travellers across the UK there are now almost 500,000 cards in issue. 'The key' is the largest smarcard scheme outside London's Oyster and soon will be expanded to enable Southern passengers to use the card on both national rail and Tube trains.

London Midland won Marketing Campaign Award for its Project 110

Together with Siemens and Network Rail, London Midland were able to increase the number of trains on route between Crew and London Euston by increasing the line speed to 110 mph. Sounds simple - but it was a feat of industry collaboration to improve the service dramatically for customers.

Southeastern employee Megan Bowne  won Rail Engineer of the Future

21 year old Megan is a fleet planning manager at Slade Green Engineering depot after joining as an apprentice in 2010.

Southeastern were finalists for their Health and Wellbeing promotion, finalists in the Women in Rail category and were highly commended for their internal social network site Workmate.

Go-Ahead announced its half year results last week (20 February) and confirmed it would continue to invest and ensure its Rail division continued to improve services for customers and employees.

ENDS.

For further information, please contact:

The Go-Ahead Group

Sarah Boundy, Group Corporate Communications Director                  07808 568 667

sarah.boundy@go-ahead.com

www.go-ahead.com

Go-Ahead

Go-Ahead is a leading UK public transport operator, providing high quality services in the bus and rail sectors. Employing around 23,500 people across the country, over one billion passenger journeys are undertaken on our services each year. We are committed to operating our companies in a safe, socially and environmentally responsible way and are proud to have been reaccredited with Carbon Trust Standard after taking action on climate change. In addition to the travelling public, our customers include the Department for Transport, Transport for London (TfL) and local authorities.

RAIL

The rail operation, Govia, is 65 per cent owned by Go-Ahead and 35 per cent by Keolis. It is the busiest rail operation in the UK, responsible for nearly 30 per cent of all UK passenger rail journeys through its three rail franchises: Southern (which includes the Gatwick Express), Southeastern and London Midland. In December 2009, Southeastern began operating the UK's first high speed domestic rail service between Kent and London, significantly reducing journey times.

BUS

Go-Ahead is one of the UK's largest bus operators. With a fleet of around 4,400 buses, we carry nearly two million passengers every day. Our operations are focused on high density commuter markets. We have a strong presence in London, with around 24 per cent market share, where we provide regulated services for TfL. We operate deregulated services in Oxford, East Anglia, the South East, Southern and North East England. We also have a small yellow school bus joint venture in North America.

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