The People Behind Efficient Coach Travel: Sonny Brown

Sustainability in coach travel starts long before a vehicle leaves the depot. Behind every journey are planning decisions that can make a real difference to fuel consumption, operational efficiency and carbon emissions.

As Regional Planning and Optimisation Manager for The Coach Travel Group, London and South East (LSE) Region, Sonny’s role focuses on making the best use of the fleet across multiple depots, ensuring we operate as efficiently and sustainably as possible.

Using Technology to Plan Smarter Journeys

The LSE team have set up a Power BI Nearest Depot Tracker, which helps identify the most geographically suitable depot for a booking. Working alongside our booking system, Sonny assesses vehicle availability, existing allocations and operational requirements to identify opportunities to redistribute work across our regional network.

For example, if a coach is allocated from a depot 30 miles away, but another depot has an available vehicle just 10 miles from the collection point, transferring the booking could eliminate 20 miles of unnecessary positional mileage.

That single decision could prevent approximately 23 kg of CO₂ emissions.

Reducing Empty Mileage: Making Every Journey Count

Another important part of Sonny’s role is identifying opportunities to connect journeys and minimise empty running. Rather than allowing a vehicle to travel back to its depot without passengers, she looks for suitable additional bookings along or near its existing route.

This approach reduces unnecessary vehicle movements while allowing us to accommodate more customer bookings using the existing fleet.

The Right Coach For The Right Journey

Vehicle selection is another important consideration. By matching passenger numbers, luggage requirements and journey specifications to meet the most suitable vehicle, Sonny makes sure the fleet is utilised effectively.

For example, if 49 passengers can comfortably travel on a 49-seater, there may be no need to allocate a larger vehicle if a smaller, more efficient option is available. 

These decisions help balance passenger comfort, operational requirements and environmental responsibility.

Small Changes, Meaningful Environmental Benefits

The real impact of regional optimisation becomes clear when we consider how these everyday improvements accumulate.

Eliminating 20 miles of unnecessary travel across 3 operators over 260 working days means:

• 15,600 fewer vehicle miles travelled annually
• 17.8 tonnes of CO2 emissions avoided
• The equivalent of 4 average petrol-powered cars' annual greenhouse gas emissions

Looking Ahead: Making Every Mile Count

For the operators in the Coach Travel Group LSE, sustainable transport is about making intelligent decisions that benefit both the environment and the business.

By looking at the bigger picture across our regional network, we can continue to grow, improve fleet utilisation and reduce avoidable emissions.

"I am committed to making every mile count, for our customers, our business and our planet!" - Sonny Brown.