Following a challenging and comprehensive procurement process, MITIE, the strategic outsourcing and asset management company has been awarded a contract with First London and Berkshire, part of FirstGroup plc, to provide support services to their bus division valued at £26m over the next five years. The support contract will include their corporate offices within Paddington Station along with 12 operational sites from where they operate well over 1,000 buses. 

Commenting on the new strategic partnership Alan Tennant, group procurement manager of FirstGroup said; “We reviewed the existing supply arrangements comprehensively and felt that we needed a business partner who could demonstrate a real acumen to deliver some serious objectives. Notably, health, safety and environment performance were key to this and we felt confident that MITIE could adhere to our way of doing things as well as deliver sustainable and superior value that will support our broader business objectives. 

We also wanted to establish a model partnering relationship that is performance based, risk/reward linked, open-book, collaborative and mutually beneficial to both businesses. With MITIE we have aligned business models, especially in the people management, human resources and health and safety facets of the business and this was key to their success.”

MITIE will be deploying a range of new innovations on the contract to assist its teams in being more efficient and effective including its state of the art, real-time customer service and reporting package, Vision IT. This system is designed to offer up-to-the-minute information on activity within the contract including auditing job standards and reporting problems such as graffiti and damage so that they can be dealt with more quickly. It will also be deploying the latest range of cleaning equipment which is more environmentally friendly as well as more effective. 

A new mobile team will be helping to improve the customer experience for First London and Berkshire’s customers by carrying out a second clean of buses during the day, whilst the bus drivers have their mid-day breaks. MITIE will also be focusing on deploying its health and safety expertise on this contract and are conducting thorough site appraisals before the contract starts to make sure that both MITIE’s and FirstGroup’s strict health and safety standards are met. 

Johan Venter, a director of MITIE’s transport team said: “Our experience, approach to management and renowned innovation contributed to the award of this contract. FirstGroup are also keen to explore what additional services we can offer going forward helping us to cement a partnership approach to their non core activities.” 

According to Alan Tennant, the scope of work will focus predominantly on cleaning, shunting and refuelling, but “should develop into such areas such as bus window filming, bus seat replacement and potentially facilities management.”

-Ends-

For further information contact: 

David Revis, Investor Relations and PR Manager, MITIE Group PLC
T: 020 7034 7306 M : 07979 702465 E: david.revis@mitie.co.uk 

Sarah Phillips, Marketing Communications Executive, MITIE Cleaning & Environmental Services
T: 0117 957 9422 E: sarah.phillips@mitie.co.uk 

For general information about the company’s activities please visit:
www.mitie.co.uk

Notes for editors 

What is MITIE?
We’re the strategic outsourcing and asset management company.

What does that mean in practice? Providing everything from strategic consultancy, to world-class delivery on the ground. From long-term infrastructure planning, to facilities management, property and engineering services. Our strategic input can add value at the highest level, while our practical management expertise can save customers money and maximise their returns.

At the same time, it’s not just what we do, but how we do it that makes us different. Our people are passionate about what they do, committed to working in partnership with their clients, and will always look for a fresh answer to a new challenge.

We work with our clients in three ways; some take full advantage of our whole range of expertise by buying the whole suite, others may only need one aspect of what we do:

Strategy and consultancy

+ Facilities and project management

+ Service delivery

In other words, we think, we manage, and we deliver.

The thinking phase is all about finding strategic answers to long-term challenges about assets and resources. Facilities and project management puts those plans in place, and our unrivalled range of services is one of the best in the business.

There’s a lot more to MITIE than you probably think. We’re a big company with big ambitions - a leading FTSE 250 support services business, with 49,000+ people, revenues in excess of £1.4bn, and a reputation for being the best. 

About FirstGroup 

FirstGroup plc is the world’s leading transport company with annualised revenues of over £5 billion a year. We employ approximately 137,000 staff throughout the UK and North America and transport more than 2.5 billion passengers a year. 

UK Bus
The Group is Britain’s largest bus operator running more than one in five of all local bus services. A fleet of nearly 9,000 buses carries approximately 3 million passengers a day in more than 40 major towns and cities. 

UK Rail
The Group operates one quarter of the UK passenger rail network, with a balanced portfolio of intercity, commuter and regional services, carrying almost 275m passengers per annum. 

The Group is the UK’s largest rail operator with four passenger franchises - First Capital Connect, First Great Western, First ScotRail and First TransPennine Express - and one open access operator, Hull Trains. 

The Group operates rail freight services through First GBRf and operates the Croydon Tramlink network on behalf of Transport for London carrying over 26 million passengers a year. 

North America
On 1 October 2007 the Group completed the acquisition of Laidlaw International, Inc. the leading operator of school and intercity bus transportation, a supplier of public transit services and Greyhound, the only national provider of intercity coach operations in North America. 

In North America the Group has four operating divisions: Yellow School Buses (First Student), Transit Contracting and Management Services (First Transit), Vehicle Fleet Maintenance and Support Services (First Services) and intercity bus services (Greyhound). Headquartered in Cincinnati, FirstGroup America Inc. operates across the US and Canada. 

• First Student is the largest provider of student transportation in North America with a fleet of approximately 60,000 yellow school buses, carrying nearly 4 million students every day across the US and Canada. 
• First Transit is one of the largest private sector providers of transit management and contracting, managing public transport systems on behalf of city transit authorities. It is one of the largest providers of airport shuttle bus services in the US and also manages call centres, paratransit operations and other light transit activities. 
• First Services is the largest private sector provider of vehicle maintenance and ancillary support services in the US. Providing fleet maintenance for public sector customers such as the Federal Government and fire and police departments it also provides support services such as vehicle maintenance, logistics support and facilities management to public and private sector clients including the US Navy and Air Force.