THE official bus company behind Glasgow 2014 has secured a contract to transport VIPs at the Ryder Cup in Gleneagles.
Aberdeen-based First Bus will provide around 260 coaches for VIPs, sponsors, media and Ryder Cup officials when the transatlantic golfing tournament comes to Scotland next week.
The firm also provided the shuttle buses and park and ride services to and from Glasgow 2014 venues earlier this summer, when Games organisers were criticised for failing to timetable enough coaches to meet demand.
First will begin its operations on Monday and expects to have transported around 10,000 passengers by the time the event comes to a close on Sunday September 28.
Managing director of First Bus, Giles Fearnley, said: "We are proud of our Scottish heritage and the important role we play connecting people and communities up and down Scotland.
"We've got a great team working on our Ryder Cup contract and have been planning for the event at Gleneagles for almost a year. The Ryder Cup is one of the world's leading and most popular sporting occasions."
Among the big names descending on Perthshire for the competition are curent Open champion Rory McIlroy as well as Bubba Watson and Phil Mickelson.
Antonia Beggs, operations director for Ryder Cup Europe, said: "First has a track record of providing transport solutions at major events and we're especially delighted to have on board a company whose routes are firmly placed in Scotland."
Perth-based transport giant, Stagecoach, was awarded the contract to provide park and ride services for Ryder Cup spectators earlier this year.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article