Do you need help starting a commercial or school bus service? If YES, here is a sample bus transportation Business Plan.
Businesses come in a variety of forms as well as in different niches.
However, one thing is common to all. However easy or complex a business seems to be, the plan is fundamental to all.
This charter bus company business plan sample focuses on the transport sector. If you want to start a charter bus company, you will definitely find this article quite helpful.
There is no gainsaying the fact that the transport industry is now one of the leading industries that are so easy to start once you have all the needed requirements. Truthfully, starting a bus company is very profitable, no doubt!
CHARTER BUS COMPANY BUSINESS PLAN SAMPLE
Starting a bus company may be capital intensive, but yet you can make an encouraging return from the business if your company is well-positioned. So, if you are so sure that you can take care of the financial capacity needed to acquire good buses, you should consider starting your own bus company right away.
Your prospective clientele won’t be restricted to schools only, but also offices, sports clubs, weekly events, and what have you. Interestingly, if your bus company has new buses at its disposal, the company will definitely be appealing to more clients.
However, here are tips and strategies that you will find helpful to start a bus company even from the scratch and still build it well to a profitable one within a short period of time.
Here is a sample business plan for starting a charter bus company.
- Carry out a Market Survey and Meet with Business Expert
Starting a bus company required good and adequate research before its setup. Meet with those that are experts in the bus business before drawing and putting together your business plan.
Dialog with local as well as government business experts to know more about the bus industry, including the legal requirements, standard operating procedure of successful bus company enterprise, industry forecasts, etc.
The local competitors wouldn’t be willing and ready to share their hidden card and best practices, but yet you can still get up-to-date information on things like pricing, rates, and promotional tactics if you browse through their bus business websites, brochures, or their business pamphlets.
- Write Your Bus Company Business Plan
It is no more news that to start a bus company you need to have a huge capital, and a business that will succeed will need a good business plan on how you intend using the available and non-available capital.
Your bus company business plan should show your marketing strategies, your source of finance, the bus company’s mission statement, and vision, your administrative style, goals, your bus company succession plans, number of bus and staff to employ, and other important factors that will be helpful in the course of running your bus business successfully.
Having drawn out your business plan, make sure that it is subject to a reality check-up to confirm if actually, it can fly. If at all your business plan fails the reality check, you should go back to the drawing board and do it all over again.
- Raise the Bus Company Startup Capital
Starting a bus company needs a huge amount of capital to acquire the necessary buses and facilities, large enough that can contain both the administrative space, parking lot for the fleet of the acquired buses.
Thus, you should go out and conduct the bus business feasibility studies to enable you to know the type of buses that are accepted in your preferred location and the amount needed to purchase them.
From the market survey conducted, you should be able to come up with the cost price for setting up your bus company, after which you should plan your budget. As such, there are a plethora of ways to raise money to finance the bus business among which you can apply to your bank for loans, raise money through your savings, or better still, from selling out some of your stocks, through family and friends and you can also raise money for your bus company through investors.
- Register the Bus Company and Obtain the Necessary Business License
A bus company is not an industry you can venture into without the approval of the government. Therefore, once you’ve got your capital ready and you are sure that you are so good to go, then you can proceed to register your bus company with the distinguished government agency or body.
After registering your bus company, you can proceed to obtain your bus business license and permits from the federal, state, and local government and then insure your company, buses, drivers, and bus administrators.
- Acquire or Lease Buses
Advisably, if you have enough and adequate capital at hand, it is cheaper to buy all the needed buses for your bus company, but if the reverse is the case, the only option would be to look for a company that can lease you the buses and pays them over the period of time.
Here is the average cost of a tour bus.
By and large, make sure that the buses you are going to acquire for your bus company will be very stable and comfortable to your prospective clients that you would want your bus company to transport and partner with.
- Design your Tours and Routes
It is of high importance that you design your tours and routes before kick-starting your bus company. You cannot implement your advertising and marketing plans unless and until you have designed your tours and routes.
Decide if the bus company will be offering general transportation services–like transport to events or weddings or it will base its specialization on tour-like offerings, like the Grand Canyon trips of celebrity homes, historic locations, and others.
To calculate the tour and rate pricing, figure out the driver’s paycheck, the cost of fuel, and other important travel-related expenses; only this will be of help to you to know the exact amount of profit you are liable to earn.
Check your competitor pricing list to compare and contrast price ranges, and if possible, adjust accordingly
- Hire Professional Drivers
Make sure that you only hire and employ professional drivers that can represent and portray the good image of your company. Beyond employing professional drivers, you should make it a priority that you make adequate provision for giving them additional training at regular intervals.
When hiring drivers, make sure that you run background checks if they have poor driving records and whether or not the driver’s license is a valid one.
- Source for Business Deals
Essentially, a bus company cannot progress and it cannot maximize any profits without huge business deals. There are a plethora of organizations and individuals that will require your bus services, as such, it is your onus and responsibility to market them. The kind of organizations you should approach for contract or business deals are companies, schools, churches, sports clubs.
- Network
Network with travel agencies, schools, retirement homes, event and wedding planners, hotels, and big association to keep bookers abreast that your bus company is available for hire.
Consider doing a free charter as a way to influence bookers so that they can experience your bus company offerings first hand. Warning– The lasting success and impression of your bus company will depend greatly on whether the passengers have an enjoyable, safe, and fun trip.
Conclusion
Promote your bus company to stand firm and strong amidst competitors by creating business cards, brochures, handbills, websites (if possible), and other promotional materials.
CHARTER BUS COMPANY BUSINESS PLAN EXAMPLE
We are specifically interested in persons who have struggled with writing their plans in the past. The contents of this will be immensely beneficial to you. We have tried as much as possible to make it as simple as possible.
A plan does not need to be complicated to be considered well written. Its structure and contents are key.
- Executive Summary
Sunrise Daily is a charter bus business in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We provide a vital service to corporations and the civil service by providing charter service. Instead of businesses actually owning the buses that convey their staff to and from work, they outsource this to us. We have the necessary infrastructure to handle this service and help relieve businesses of the burden.
Our business is capital intensive and requires substantial investments. A large chunk of these goes into purchasing large and small buses for different functions. We currently have a fleet of 10 charter buses consisting of 7 large and 3 small buses all deployed for use.
- Our Services
It has become much cheaper and less burdensome for corporations and government departments and agencies to outsource the transport of their labor force to us. We see this as an opportunity to grow our business. We offer prompt transport services to workers to and from their places of work.
- Vision Statement
We desire to expand our services to more businesses within Philadelphia and the whole of Pennsylvania. We are desirous of becoming the most preferred charter business company within the space of 10 7 years. We are putting more effort into positioning our business to achieve this objective within the set time.
- Mission Statement
Our mission is to help businesses focus more on other productive areas than having to worry about transporting their workers. We will be expanding our fleet to service more businesses within the state of Pennsylvania.
- Financing
Sunrise Daily charter Bus Company is a capital intensive venture. We have committed considerable financial resources in establishing our business. To expand our services, we will source financing to the tune of $5,000,000.00. This will be raised through a loan facility at a 2% monthly interest rate and payable in 15 years.
- SWOT Analysis
An evaluation of our business activities has been done to determine our state of health. We are keen on using the results to reposition our business towards achieving greater efficiency. It has shown areas we are most competent in as well as those which require further improvement.
- Strength
We have been able to secure an agreement with two major corporations and 3 government agencies for the transport of their workforce to and from work. This is a major demonstration of confidence in our ability to deliver. We have not failed either as we have been able to successfully carry this through. This is a selling point for future clients.
- Weakness
As a new charter bus company, we have a limited number of fleets. We have just 10 buses. This can only serve a definite number of clients. However, we are working to overcome this weakness by adding more buses to our fleet in the coming months. This will be a major accomplishment of our expansion program.
- Opportunities
There are lots of potential clients we will not be given upon. We have already started on a solid footing by getting the approval of 2 major corporations. Our experience with our current clients will place us in a better position to bid for contracts with other businesses within the state
- Threats
An economic recession will lead to the shedding of workers. This will reduce the total number of the workforce of most businesses.
In extreme cases, businesses will no longer be able to foot the bills of transporting their staff due to a shrink in their earnings. This will ultimately push us out of business.
- Sales Projection
The economic outlook on the transport industry shows promising signs which are expected to improve over the coming years. Our charter bus company will benefit from this improvement. We have done a three-year sales projection to determine our level of profitability.
Results have indicated a positive trend as it shows a steady climb in profitability;
- First Financial Year $1,000,000.00
- Second Financial Year $3,400,000.00
- Third Financial Year $7,000,000.00
- Sales and Marketing Strategy
The successes we have had during the 2 years of our existence have been remarkable. This has been a direct result of our marketing efforts. Our marketing team has designed a series of strategies that include paying a visit to our potential clients and selling them our business. This strategy is still useful and will be retained after expanding our capacity.
- Competitive Advantage
The expansion of our services through the purchase of more buses will make our charter bus company the 4th largest in Philadelphia. We are targeting the top spot and will be working with some of the best hands in the industry who will handle different aspects of our operations.
Our current expansion drive is just the first phase and will be a continual process until we achieve our goals.
Have you found this charter bus company business plan sample useful? We hope you did. We have used an imaginary and non-existent business to provide you with a critical guide on how to approach the subject matter of writing a proper plan.
We always recommend that you make as many findings as you can about the bus transport business before writing the plan. This makes your plan more detailed and practical.