Innovative duo on-track to shake up operational control

They met at an awards ceremony and a year later Kevin Short and Austin Birks returned as joint winners in ‘new thinking’. Now their innovative applications of vehicle tracking data are changing the way bus services are run

Kevin Short (left) with his colleague, Austin Birks

Kevin Short (left) with his colleague, Austin Birks

In June 2009 at New Transit’s Passenger Transport Management Awards, Austin Birks and Kevin Short won the Innovation and New Thinking Award for a ground breaking initiative that provided text and web-based passenger real time information on a local contracted bus service that operated from Worcestershire into Birmingham.

It was not the first time that the pair had been recognised for innovation. Just a year before Birks and Short met at the 2008 PTMA Awards, where they were both...