Page 2 - CIMA May 18 - MCS Day 2 Suggested Solutions

SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS

In terms of a business justification for any spend needed, reliability is one of our stated aims in
our group strategy. If we cannot offer a reliable service then people will be dissatisfied with the
customer experience they have with us and this could lead to customers choosing to use our
competitors in cases where a rival service is running, or to use other means of transport when
there is no alternative bus service. In extreme cases of reliability failure there could be protests,
similar to those made by Southern Rail customers in the UK recently.

Bad publicity could lead to even more customers switching away, denting our profits and making
whole routes unprofitable to run. So it makes sense to evaluate reliability levels ourselves so that
we can spot any issues before they lead to significant customer dissatisfaction.

Measures to evaluate safety

The four measures that I’d suggest to evaluate safety are:

Number of accidents

Percentage of scheduled maintenance performed on time

100% of drivers adequately trained and holding the appropriate licence

100% of buses certified to regulatory requirements with regard to safety

Accidents should be fairly rare but should always be logged when they happen, either because of
injuries, insurance requirements or repairs needed. It should be easy to collate the data in
relation to these if it’s not already done.

All vehicles should be maintained on either a 4, 6 or 8 week cycle. We should ensure that every
maintenance session is logged and signed off so that we can show the logs as evidence that we
are adhering to our own schedule.

Data from training records should be collated for every driver and a copy of the licence held with
their staff records, with someone tasked to review this on a regular basis to ensure that we are
100% compliant.

We should log every bus and the safety requirements that are necessary for it to be in compliance
with regulations and somebody should be tasked with a regular physical review of each bus to
ensure that there is no deterioration in safety level that would bring us below the compliance
level. There should also be someone dedicated to reviewing whether any new regulatory
requirements are due to be actioned.

Safety is even more important than reliability from a customer perspective, so the same
arguments apply here in terms of justification of these measures being in place. Also, if the
company is liable for safety failures that have led to members of the public or staff suffering
injuries, the consequences could be much more severe for the company, both financially and in
terms of reputation.

Financial manager

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