SCOTTISH transport entrepreneur Sir Brian Souter has unveiled a major expansion of his inter-city coach services venture in Poland, involving a £10 million investment which will create about 160 jobs.
Sir Brian is building the PolskiBus.com venture through his family investment vehicle, as opposed to the Perth-based Stagecoach bus and rail business of which he is chairman and co-founder.
PolskiBus.com, which was started by Souter Investments in 2011, yesterday announced the launch of a new hub in the city of Wroclaw, alongside four new routes.
It also unveiled an investment in 30 new vehicles, which will take the number of coaches ordered by PolskiBus.com in 2013 to 75.
The new PolskiBus.com routes will connect Wroclaw with Bydgoszcz, Gdansk, Katowice, Krakow, Opole, Poznan, Rzeszow and Zakopane, as well as Berlin in Germany and Prague in the Czech Republic.
Existing services to Lodz, Warsaw and Prague will meanwhile be enhanced through increased frequency of services.
Highlighting the 160 new posts arising from its latest expansion, PolskiBus.com noted that, since its launch in June 2011, it had now created more than 500 jobs across Poland.
Sir Brian, president of PolskiBus.com, said: "We are extremely excited by the launch of our second PolskiBus.com hub in Wroclaw."
He added: "Instead of the stress and rising cost of travelling by car, an ever-increasing number of people are turning to PolskiBus.com."
Barry Pybis, chief executive officer of PolskiBus.com, said the business had carried nearly five million passengers since it was launched.
He added: "We are delighted to continue the expansion of our national and international network of..express services across Poland, and Central and Eastern Europe."
Souter Investments said at the time of PolskiBus.com's launch in the summer of 2011, when it unveiled coach services on eight national and international routes from a hub in Warsaw, that it had been monitoring the Polish market for some time and had been attracted by the demographics.
It noted that Poland was a European Union member but with its own currency, had a growing economy and benefited from a "large, increasingly affluent, and mobile population of 38 million".
And it declared that the model for PolskiBus.com was based on successful and fast-growing transport businesses operating in the UK, US and Canada, adapted for the Polish and European markets.
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