BUas and Arriva extend successful partnership

Learning Community 

"Five years ago, we set up this Learning Community in which we each use our own expertise and experience for the benefit of OV innovations. Especially in the field of (digital) transformation, sustainability, flexibility and multimodality," says Jan Pieter Been. "Good for us as a company and good for the competitiveness of the public transport sector as a whole. And innovating is very important in public transport, because the world around us is also constantly changing. Just look at the growth of cities, the ageing of the countryside or the increasing congestion in some parts of the country. This calls for adapted transport solutions." 

Testing and scraping 

"Our students, coached by our lecturers and scientists get to work on these kinds of issues and possible solutions," adds Jorrit Snijder of BUas. "And because we are so closely connected through the Learning Community, our ideas can be tested and polished directly in practice. We can also bring in colleagues or students from other disciplines to shine their light on a logistics problem. That sometimes leads to surprising solutions."

Successful collaboration 

In the past five years, the partnership has already delivered a lot. Some examples include a dashboard of bus use per line and bus stop, allowing data-driven trend analyses to be made for e.g. major events such as carnival, but also a teaching module 'Transport science for non-transport experts' developed by BUas and taught within Arriva. In addition, Arriva and BUas are experimenting with 'peak shaving' in BUas' class schedules, with the large flows of students coming to campus during rush hour in the morning more evenly spread. This also going to be implemented at other educational institutions in 2024. 

And very recently, it was agreed that BUas students who get their -paid for by Arriva- bus driving licence and start driving bus services will get 1 EC for this training. Around 10 students are currently on this route.

Enthusiasm among students 

"Thanks to the short lines of communication between BUas and Arriva, I was not only able to do my graduation internship at Arriva, but I also got a very nice side job out of it. The theory I learnt at my studies I can apply in practice, and the experience and knowledge from the work floor I take back to my studies," said Jarno, 4th year mobility student at BUas. 

The above examples and student experiences have ensured that the cooperation will continue at least until July 2025. "After that, we will look again, but we would be surprised if we do not decide to extend again by then," the two signatories predict.