East Anglia: Go-Ahead on course for solid growth in bus and rail revenues
Go-Ahead group chief executgive David Brown - Credit: Archant
Transport group Go-Ahead said today that its bus operations were continuinig to perform strongly in the run up to its year-end.
Go-Ahead, which includes the Anglian Bus, Hedingham and Chambers bus companies in Suffolk and Essex, said revenues from its deregulated bus services outside London were on course for growth of 8% in the year to June 29 overall, and 4% excluding acquisitions.
Its regulated bus services in the capital where expected to achieve growth of 12.5% in total and 6.5% excluding acquisitions, with underlying figures of 11% and 5% respectively stripping out the effects of last summer’s Olympics.
Revenues from its Southern, Southeastern and London Midland rail franchises would show growth of around 5%, 8% and 12% respectively, or 4.5%, 7% and 11% excluding the Olympic effect.
However, Go-Ahead said that profitability within the rail division would be hit by higher than expected costs during the fourth quarter.
Group chief executive David Brown said: “I am pleased to report continuing resilience across our operations. Both our bus and rail divisions have seen improved growth in passenger numbers in recent weeks, following the effect of adverse weather previously reported in the third quarter.
“Our bus division continues to trade well and is on track to deliver a better than expected result for the full year as we start to see the benefits of cost initiatives coupled with continued revenue growth. We are making good progress towards our target to organically grow bus operating profit to £100m by 2015/16.
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“In rail, our team is working hard to deliver strong bids for both the Docklands Light Railway and Thameslink franchises. We also look forward to working with the Department for Transport in the coming months to agree terms for the full franchise extensions for Southeastern and London Midland announced in March.”
And he added: “Whilst our overall expectations for the full year remain unchanged, we now expect a greater proportion of group operating profit to come from the bus division.”
