IRTE Skills Challenge News

IRTE Skills Challenge 2012 - Let the games begin

27th Jun 2012

Hard at work: (left to right) Dilawar Hussain and Mark Cubitt competing for the London Borough of Redbridge team

The hotly-anticipated IRTE Skills Challenge kicked off yesterday in Bristol, with the first four competing teams getting stuck into a series of bus and coach related tasks.

Hosted at S&B Automotive Academy’s impressive training facilities, the IRTE Skills Challenge will see fourteen teams competing over three days to find out which has the best bus and coach technicians in the industry.

“I took part in the challenge last year and it does really get your mind working,” says competing technician Gavin Knights, 25, from Ipswich Buses. “It’s also good to know what sort of people are working out there in other companies.”

Competing for the first time this year is Derbyshire bus operator Trent Barton, led by technical engineer and training coordinator Kyle Testo. “We have an outstanding engineering team and we thought it would be an excellent way of highlighting the accomplishments and achievements of our team members,” says Testo. “It’s a great way to get the engineers into the limelight, rather than them being the hidden heroes of the industry.”

Sponsored by Allison Transmission, Arriva, Bridgestone, Delphi, Halfords Trade, Knorr-Bremse, MAN, Scania and Shell Lubricants, the competition demonstrates the importance of the people who keep the bus and coach industry moving.

A Professional Sector of Society of Operations Engineers (SOE), IRTE is membership organisation for road transport professionals.

SOE chief executive Nick Jones says: “Bus and coach technicians play a vital role in society. Their work has been overlooked for too long, and this competition celebrates and recognises their skills, while highlighting their daily achievements to the wider public.”

Winners will be announced during a ceremony in late July.

Other competitors taking part in the IRTE Skills Challenge include Arriva, Bluestar Bus, Translink, Wilts & Dorset Bus Company, MoD, Go-Ahead and London Borough of Redbridge.