Archive, Industry News

Ferris award highlights Wagga meeting

Long overdue and much deserved, BusNSW honoured bus industry training identity Geoff Ferris with this year’s Outstanding Contributor to Industry award, highlighting the recent Wagga regional conference

By David Goeldner | October 15, 2010

Long-time bus and coach industry training identity Geoff Ferris was rewarded for year’s of dedication to improving operator and driver education at the recent BusNSW regional conference at Wagga Wagga with the Outstanding Contributor to Industry award.

Ferris is Buslines Group Operations Manager, and sits on several transport training-oriented committees in NSW.

“When you are born into the bus business you have a love of what you do,” Ferris says.

“You are not only employed in it, but you have a lot of time for the industry and what it delivers.”

Ferris says the greatest thrill in his career was managing the bus operations for the Sydney Olympics in 2000.

“I’m not sure we thought it was a thrill at the time when we were working 20 hour days, but it was a fantastic operation to be involved with, and it went off very well,” he says.

Ferris’ involvement in industry training dominated his career after his family sold their Parramatta-Ryde Bus Service in 1993.

Since then he has co-written training material with Professor David Hensher at the University of Sydney and delivered several courses on driver authority training as well as the NSW snow and adverse weather conditions training course, delivered to over 6000 drivers.

He now manages Buslines’ eight regional NSW bus services, including 24 country taxis.

“We run a very good bus operation and I am quite passionate about it,” Ferris says.

BusNSW Executive Director Darryl Mellish says Ferris’ award was a highlight of last week’s conference at Wagga Wagga, attended by 230 delegates.

The conference was also attended by Transport NSW senior executives, including the Deputy Director of Transport Services John Karaboulis and Director of Contracts Craig Dunn, both joining a panel session fielding questions on accreditation and contracts.

Delegates were able to hear from Government officials on their views about administering Government contracts in regional NSW.

Also discussed was the ‘critical incident’ reporting system, recently introduced in NSW, as well as electronic financial reporting systems.

Mellish says there was a good rapport between the bus and coach industry and government representatives at the panel session and throughout the conference.

“The attendance by our colleagues from the Public Transport Ticketing Corporation was also most welcome,” Mellish says.

“It gave operators a chance to speak to them informally about the electronic ticketing project that is so important to the industry.”

The next BusNSW regional conference will be held in April at Crowne Plaza Terrigal.

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