Zeelo hails its ‘safe’ buses as key to recovery

Two entrepreneurs, who started their first business as students with a grant from Leeds University, are now looking to extend their safe bus travel app to Yorkshire.
Left - Barney Williams, co-Founder of Zeelo, and Sam Ryan, co-founder and CEOLeft - Barney Williams, co-Founder of Zeelo, and Sam Ryan, co-founder and CEO
Left - Barney Williams, co-Founder of Zeelo, and Sam Ryan, co-founder and CEO

Co-founders Sam Ryan and Barney Williams said their firm, Zeelo, provides safe, smart bus services for staff at companies such as Amazon, Argos and Ocado.

They have developed the technology to enable passengers to maintain a safe social distance from other commuters during the coronavirus pandemic. It can also help to contact trace passengers if they develop symptoms later on.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The pair said that commuters will only return to public transport when there is more confidence in their safety amid the Covid-19 crisis.

Mr Ryan said: “Zeelo is a bus sharing platform, which provides smart transportation services for commuting and school runs.

“We mainly work with large companies such as Ocado, Jaguar Land Rover and Vodafone with bus services that help their staff get to work everyday. With schools, we help get the kids to and from school everyday safely.

“We are primarily targeting areas where there is a lack of public transport currently. The aim is to move people out of cars and into bus transportation.”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Mr Ryan said that after the lockdown a lot of Zeelo’s clients closed their offices and many school partners closed their schools.

“About 20 per cent of our clients were in essential services, so they still had critical workers needing to reach their workplace everyday,” said Mr Ryan.

“This was for distribution centres like Amazon and supermarket distribution centres like Ocado. All of these workers were really critical in keeping the country moving during the lockdown period. So actually we saw quite a significant surge in enquiries and sales from employers who needed to get their staff to work everyday in a safe way. All of that was going on whilst public transport was being reduced.”

Mr Ryan said the firm quickly put in place measures to make the bus environment as safe as possible.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“We adapted our booking technology to manage safe capacities. All of our services became pre-booked so we could enforce onboard social distancing,” he said.

“We also built a contact tracing notification system so if someone travelled on one of our services and later had symptoms, they could notify us and automatically we could notify passengers that had shared a vehicle with them in the previous seven to 14 days, which the employers we work with are very grateful for.”

Now the two co-founders are keen to return to their Yorkshire roots.

“We are looking to expand into Yorkshire,” said Mr Ryan.

“We are very much focused on the regions - the West Midlands, the North West, South West and Wales primarily. We are not yet in Yorkshire, which is hopefully a market we can get back into.”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The firm is targeting major employment hubs and employers in the region.

“We think this safe bus transport offer is more important than ever, in helping businesses to reopen safely. It’s the same with schools.

“Many of these institutions previously relied on public transport to get staff or students to work or school on a daily basis. It has now been proven that it’s very difficult in a public transport environment to maintain safe distancing and to really control the infection risk.”

Zeelo’s bus services have air filtration systems on board and temperature checks.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“We can also take pressure off the public transport network because it’s been widely publicised that even if 15 to 20 per cent of the workforce suddenly returns to work, there just won’t be enough capacity to maintain safe distancing,” said Mr Ryan.

“We really think we can play a significant part in the world reopening safely.”

Zeelo’s co-founders applied for Leeds University’s Spark Business Programme funding to start their first business, a taxi sharing operation which was subsequently sold to premium taxi firm Addison Lee.

“We were lucky enough to receive a lot of support from the university to get us going,” said Mr Ryan.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

“The programme helps Leeds University students to get the fundamentals of their business in place and also provides advice.”

The pair were given around £12,000 as start-up capital to develop the initial taxi sharing app.

“It gave us that initial boost we needed to get the business up and running. It was really a stepping stone for us to get started which was incredible and we’re very grateful for it,” added Mr Ryan.

“In 2014 we sold that business to Addison Lee in London. We spent two years within Addison Lee growing that business and then in 2016 we left to start Zeelo.

“Leeds University helped us on our journey.”

Related topics: