Great Western Coffee Shop

James Freeman, who rose from bus conductor to becoming the Managing Director of First West of England, the area’s main bus operator, has announced that he is retiring from the business next May.

Freeman, who lives in Bath, has overseen a major transformation of the bus company in the region since he arrived six years ago, including the introduction of one of the largest fleets of biomethane buses across the country and the roll out of the £230m rapid transit metrobus development in Bristol. Prior to the impact of the coronavirus on the bus industry, the business had seen growth in passenger numbers of between 6-10% per year during his tenure.

Today, First West of England employs some 1,800 staff and has a fleet of 600 vehicles covering Bristol, Bath, South Gloucestershire, North Somerset and parts of Somerset and Wiltshire.

Freeman previously held leadership positions with Reading Buses and Stagecoach, where he was Chief Executive Officer and a Managing Director respectively. He had previously worked as Managing Director of Badgerline Transit Developments in 1987 which was eventually subsumed into First Group which is the parent company for First Bus. He was just 28 when he was appointed to his first Managing Director role at Shamrock & Rambler Coaches in Bournemouth.

Says Freeman: “I am a very lucky person in that I have been able to spend my career in a sector about which I am extremely passionate.  From an early age I was fascinated by buses and felt then that I could help to make them run. My first contact with the company was when I boarded a brand new bus on display outside Marlborough Street Bus Station in Bristol in 1968. The man I talked to on that day helped make up my mind day that I would make my career on the buses.

From Coach and Bus Week (https://cbwmagazine.com/james-freeman-to-bow-out-as-managing-director-of-first-west-of-england/)

Surely the first thing he'll do is take a busman's holiday. ;D

Today we are saying goodbye to James Freeman, our Managing Director, who is heading for retirement.
 
Over the past six and a half years he has overseen a huge transformation of the company, so we’re looking back at some of the brilliant changes he has brought to First West of England.

James has worked to establish First West of England at the forefront of sustainable developments in the bus industry, which has included the introduction of one of the largest fleets of bio-methane buses in the UK.
 
He’s seen the roll-out of the metrobus rapid transit services in Bristol, getting people in the city to where they need to be faster and more smoothly.

He saw early on that technology had huge potential, and in 2016 launched the revolutionary mTickets which are now the principal means of buying bus travel. Since then, he’s also seen the introduction of contactless payments, and more recently, Tap & Cap payment.

And, of course, he’s brightened up the bus routes in the West of England with some distinctive new liveries!

We wish him all the best for retirement and would like to extend a very warm welcome to our new Managing Director, Doug Claringbold.