Merridale System Helps Streamline Expanding Travel Company

Background
Based in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, Marchants Coaches Ltd. has been providing day trips, theatre trips, European holidays, individual coach hire plus bus and school bus services for over 65 years. With two depots, a fleet of coaches and buses seating from 16 to 83 passengers and a travel shop located in Cheltenham town centre, the family run business has built its reputation with a friendly and reliable service. Marchants helps families have happy seaside memories, provides comfortable journeys on day trips and theatre trips across the United Kingdom and is entrusted with local bus services and the important daily task of getting children to and from school safely. Marchants is described by its customers as providing a ‘perfect service’ and having ‘excellent and very knowledgeable drivers’. It was therefore no surprise that, when upgrading its fuel management system, Marchants chose to expand its existing Merridale system, which has similar attributes.

“At Merridale, we are confident that one of our Fuel Management Software systems will usually offer an ideal solution for most applications. The particular system recommended will always depend on fleet size and other requirements and we were delighted to provide Marchants with our FuelWorks software.”

The original Merridale system had been inherited when acquiring another coach company in 2014 and Marchants recognised its advantages in reporting and the collation of data. Previously Marchants had used a long established and labour-intensive method to create and send its reports. The decision was made to commission Merridale to install and set up a solution, providing its quick and easy to use reporting tool across the whole operation.

Merridale’s Sales Director, Stephen Hannan, said: “At Merridale, we are confident that one of our Fuel Management Software systems will offer an ideal solution for most applications. The particular system recommended will always depend on fleet size and other requirements and we were delighted to provide Marchants with our FuelWorks software. After purchasing a coach company which was already using one of our systems, it made sense for them to utilise it across the rest of the business”.

The Project and Results
Marchants chose to expand the use of the Merridale FuelWorks web-based solution to collate and report on all of its data. As well as state-of-the-art reporting functionality,

FuelWorks allows Marchants to access the system from anywhere, schedule reports to be sent regularly via email, predict low stock and set up email alerts.

Marty Kent, Marchants Operations Manager, had this to say about the new software installation: “We were very happy with the services, both sales and aftersales, provided by Merridale. The new FuelWorks tool allowed us to streamline our reporting process, saving us valuable time, and, most importantly, gives us up-to-date and accurate information on our operating costs”.

For more information on how a Merridale Fuel Management System will keep an accurate check on your fuel costs, contact Merridale on sales@merridale.co.uk.