Occupation: Marketing Manager for First Aberdeen, First Scotland East & Bright Bus Tours
Bus services provide a lifeline for many people to travel for work, for care reasons or to visit loved ones (latter outwith lockdown). Carolyn is helping people stay connected by providing important information that allows people to make these journeys, and ensure they have everything they need to know ahead of travel.
“By making sure key service information is available, and that passengers have the latest updates – we’re ensuring that they can make those important journeys to get to where they need to be.”
Carolyn’s story and why she loves the bus:
“I’m the Marketing Manager for First Aberdeen & First Scotland East – which means it’s my job to give people a reason every day to travel by bus and communicate as best I can why they should choose bus instead of hopping in the car.
By leading on our digital channels – it means we can communicate with so many different types of people who choose to travel by bus for a number of reasons – to see family, for leisure, for work – and help them navigate through all the key information we want to convey.
I think that public transport and more specifically the bus brings such a blend of people together. I’m also passionate about the environmental factors associated with public transport, and I think that so many people are still unaware of the impact their bus journey makes directly on the environment.”
Two brilliant bus stories…
“We ran a project during lockdown where children were offered the chance to design their own bus livery. I was part of the team which executed this, and we transformed an Aberdeen P5s winning design into a real life tribute to NHS workers. It was brilliant to witness our winner, Adam, see his own bus for the first time. His design is now featured on 3 buses across Scotland, and it features a rainbow design which really catches your eye when you spot it out and about. It was a really positive project, and we had so many wonderful entries that it was great to be part of, and a brilliant way to pay tribute to our NHS who have worked so very hard and continue to do so.”
“Another best bus story of mine would be manning our social media channels throughout the initial lockdown in early 2020 – through the stream of service queries, we also received so many kind messages of support for our drivers and their hard work to ensure key workers were still able to travel. From ‘we love you bus driver’ signs at local bus stops, so kind messages – I loved being
able to share those with our teams and it really gave such a morale boost during some difficult months.”
