Arriva wins prestigious award for new road safety campaign

Leading bus operator Arriva has won a prestigious health and safety award for a road safety campaign in Merseyside.

It won Campaign of the Year at last night’s Safety and Health Excellence Awards in Birmingham for the Stop and Stay campaign, which was launched in September 2023.

Arriva Merseyside’s hard-hitting Stop and Stay campaign is aimed at encouraging pedestrians to wait before crossing the road after getting off a bus.

The Stop and Stay | Arriva Bus UK campaign was the idea of Matt Mort, Risk Manager for Arriva Merseyside.

He collaborated with Arriva UK Bus’ external and internal communications team and a range of materials were produced.

It featured posters, video and a CCTV clip released to the media showing part of a collision in which a schoolboy was struck by a car after leaving a bus.

The aim was to highlight how collisions can happen when children are in a hurry to make it to school or leave school to see friends and parents.

Arriva is displaying posters on its buses and has distributed a digital booklet to schools to help teachers push the message to children about stopping and staying before making a move to cross the road.

Prior to the campaign there was on average one road accident every three months involving a child who’s just stepped off a bus and into oncoming traffic.

Since the launch of the campaign, those collisions have reduced massively.

Colleagues from Arriva attended the awards ceremony on Wednesday, May 1 in Birmingham, hosted by comedian Dara O’Briain.

Arriva Merseyside had also been shortlisted in the best risk driver management performance category.

Richard Hoare, Arriva North West area director, said:

“We are really proud of the work that Matt and his colleagues have done with this campaign.

“It’s wonderful to have been recognised for Stop and Stay campaign among our peers in the health and safety industry.

“However, the most important thing of all is that the campaign has had such a crucial impact on the safety of the people we serve in Merseyside day in, day out.

“Our aim as a business is not just to connect communities, but to do what we can to connect those communities safely and part of that is driving home the message that all our customers – no matter whether they’re children or adults –  need to make sure they cross the road safely when they leave our buses. In this case, that message has got through and has effected a really positive change.”

The Stop and Stay campaign material has been translated into Welsh, ready for a roll out in schools in Wales and there are plans to make the campaign even bigger and better.

Arriva’s Stop and Stay campaign has also been shortlisted for Bus Initiative of the Year award at CIHT Awards in June.

Find more information about the campaign on the Arriva website.

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