Recruitment leads Tower Transit plans

Friday 16 September 2022

The new owners of the company which runs Guernsey's bus service has said it wants to employ more drivers and will use recruitment campaigns they've carried out successfully elsewhere to do so.

Guernsey has experienced a shortage of bus drivers this year which has impacted services.

Pictured: Tower Transit is a subsidiary of Australian Kelsian Group Limited.

HR Director at the new owner's Tower Transit, Harjit Sahota said this is on their radar as an area to work on immediately.

"We serve, very proudly, island communities in Australia, so we know and understand the challenges that brings. 

"We understand that in islands people are passionate about their bus service, which is a great thing. It's a vital service and we look forward to being part of that. I think what we can bring is a longer line in the future to add value, in terms of the technologies that we can implement and IT systems and probably most important is our expertise in terms of our people. 

"We understand that there are staff shortages in Guernsey, and that has caused disruption in recent months, and they continue to cause disruption so we have successfully managed recruitment campaigns in London, in a time and environment when our competitors were struggling, so we're confident that we can bring some value in trying to resolve that issue. 

"We understand that the local management team have been trying hard to resolve it, but there is no overnight fix. We understand that is a main priority for everyone and we're committed to trying to find a resolution for that."

Pictured: For now, everything stays the same. Miss Sahota said the branding on Guernsey's buses might change in time - but for now, passengers should see no changes at all.

Miss Sahota assured all existing CT Plus staff that their jobs are safe and recruitment not redundancies is their plan. 

"For us it is a 'business as usual' approach. There is no change for staff, it is the same local management team, their T&Cs remain the same. There's no real change for the drivers or the other staff in general, and to build on that, we want to ensure the transition is a smooth one, so there's no disruption to the residents or visitors to the island as well."

Tower Transit and its parent company Kelsian Group Ltd, have experience in electric and hydrogen powered vehicles. Miss Sahota said this may lead to new buses in Guernsey in time.

"We have experience and what we want to understand is the aims and aspirations of the States of Guernsey, what they want us to deliver, what we can deliver and we're just going to take it from there, but we've got that international reach and we've got people that understand that technology.

"We're quite confident that there's value to be added and we can do it."

Pictured top: Guernsey's bus service is run by CT Plus, on behalf of the States, with the Committee for the Environment and Infrastructure having political responsibility for the service. CT Plus is now owned by Tower Transit, a subsidiary of Kelsian Group Limited.