Allocations Supervisor

We’re Pulhams — a long-established, family-focused bus and coach operator based in Bourton-on-the-Water in the heart of the Cotswolds. With a heritage dating back to 1880, we’re proud to be a business that has grown for more than 140 years while still keeping a warm, community-driven feel.

We recently became part of the Oxford Bus Company within the Go-Ahead Group, which is helping us invest in our people, our fleet, and the future of our services. Today, we operate 160 buses and coaches from multiple sites, across a wide variety of work, including local bus routes, home-to-school services, private hire, educational trips, and UK and European tours.

It’s an exciting time to join us. We’re expanding, modernising, and developing new services while staying true to the family values that have shaped who we are. Joining Pulhams means becoming part of a friendly, ambitious team that takes pride in serving our communities and delivering a first-class travel experience.

• Allocate driving duties in compliance with Domestic, Assimilated and Mixed driving regulations.
• Maximise duty coverage and efficient use of all drivers and vehicles, delivering solutions that work for drivers, customers and are cost-effective for the business, in line with the pricing rationale for each job.
• Work closely with the Private Hire team to ensure that the needs of clients are met consistently by the drivers and vehicles allocated.
• Plan and manage driver rotas, holidays and flexible working arrangements to ensure operational coverage.
• Provide daily operational support for the Operations Manager, Service Delivery Manager and Senior Allocations Supervisor with general depot activities, including sickness, holidays, vehicle breakdowns and emergency work allocation, updating all systems where required, including the Days Off Spreadsheet (DOS).
• Coordinate vehicle allocation swaps between Bourton depot and outstations to support efficient operation of local bus, home to school and coaching activities, working with engineering colleagues to maintain full coverage of all work whilst meeting all necessary compliance requirements.
• Maintain accurate operational records (duties, vehicles, rotas and logs) and monitor compliance.
• Use tracking systems to ensure that coaching and private hire activities are operated to a high standard, and clients are kept informed of any delays or disruption that may arise, where these cannot be mitigated.
• Support the Operations Manager and Service Delivery Manager with driver welfare, including sickness monitoring.
• Provide on-call and out-of-hours support on a rota basis, including service updates where required outside of office hours.
• Undertake any other reasonable duties and responsibilities of a similar nature or level of responsibility as may be allocated from time to time.
• Driving coverage where necessary.
• Assist with handling any emergency which may arise, including following procedures in the event of fire.
• Carry out duties safely and in accordance with all company policies & procedures and to comply with Company Health & Safety Policy and Risk Assessments.
• To generally promote the company and uphold the company’s reputation, enhancing the company’s image through appearance and behaviour.

The successful candidate will allocate work and vehicles to drivers, manage holiday and sickness cover, arrange cover for training courses and appointments, prepare and send out work tickets and plenty more aside.

Importantly, we’re looking for someone who will allocate work in a financially efficient manner, but also in a way which recognises drivers work patterns and vehicle allocations, to improve driver satisfaction.

This role is directly able to affect how efficient our operation is in terms of paid hours / miles operated and will suit someone with an eye for detail and an ability to see how things fit together in different ways, to maximise productivity. It is a challenging, yet rewarding role.

There is an element of weekend on-call availability required within this role, with occasional driving required when the business is at it’s busiest.

Pulhams continues to grow and develop, with this role becoming more and more significant. The successful applicant will work with the wider management team to implement new ways of working, to modernise how we work, as well as retaining a personal touch, which is so important when allocating work to our drivers in a fair and consistent manner.

• GCSE’s (or equivalent) in English and Maths
• PCV licence
• A highly organised individual with a proactive and positive attitude to work
• A willingness to learn and work flexibly to the needs of the business
• Enthusiastic, conscientious and hardworking
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills

Desirable:

• Experience of supervising staff
• Experience in allocation processes