By sector Factories & industrial

A late bus at changeover holds two shifts, not one.

That is the whole difference between industrial transport and office transport. An office run that arrives ten minutes late inconveniences the people on it. A shift run that arrives ten minutes late keeps the outgoing crew standing at the gate and starts the incoming one behind, and it does that three times a day, every day, until somebody fixes it.

Request a proposal How we load a bus

Two drivers per vehicle
Spare at your gate
One seat, one belt

This sector at a glance

Shape: Two or three changeovers a day, seven days if you run them
Routes: Accommodation or district to gate, timed to the shift board
Crewing: Two drivers per vehicle on a round-the-clock roster
From: SAR 18,000 per vehicle per month, about SAR 200 per worker
Cover: A spare at your gate, 30-minute replacement target
Loading: Seated capacity only. No standing, no exceptions

Send your shift board and headcount per shift — a costed proposal comes back within one working day.

Request a proposal

The shape of a shift contract

Three changeovers, and no slack in any of them.

Office transport has two windows a day. A three-shift plant has three, spread around the clock, and each one is a hard edge — the outgoing crew cannot leave until the incoming crew is on site.

05:40 First changeover
Morning shift in, night shift out. The hardest one to get right because it is the earliest, the darkest, and the one where a driver oversleeping costs you a production hour.
Shift A in · Shift C out
13:40 Second changeover
Afternoon shift in, morning shift out, in the worst of the heat. Vehicles are parked in shade where the site allows it and the cooling is checked before every run, not weekly.
Shift B in · Shift A out
21:40 Third changeover
Night shift in, afternoon shift out. The run nobody watches and the one where corners get cut — which is exactly why it gets the same rostered, rested driver as the morning.
Shift C in · Shift B out
Beyond Overtime, shutdowns and Fridays
A maintenance shutdown doubles your headcount for a fortnight. Fridays change the board. Overtime lands at short notice. All three are planned for rather than improvised, at contract rates.

Why we quote against your shift board, not your address

Send the board — the actual start and finish times for each shift, including the ones that differ on a Friday — and the vehicles are timed backwards from them. Arrival is set twenty minutes before the shift starts, because a route that targets the start time is a route that delays a changeover twice a month. Every plant we have taken over from another operator was arriving at the start time and wondering why the handover always ran late.

The four ways plants solve this

Honestly compared, including the cheap one.

Industrial transport is bought on price more often than any other kind, and the cheapest quote on the table is usually cheap for reasons that are not written down. Here are the real options, including where we are genuinely not the right answer.

Workers arrange their own

No transport provided

Cost: Nothing on your books. The cost shows up as lateness and absence instead.
Admin: None at all, until the first incident on the road involving your workforce.
When it fails: The line runs short-handed and the supervisor finds out at the board.
Who carries it: The worker, and on a bad day your production schedule.

Workable where people live minutes away and shifts are not tight.

Informal van operators

The cheapest quote you will get

Cost: Lowest per seat by a distance, and the reason is visible in the vehicle.
Admin: You do the chasing — no coordinator, no schedule, no reporting.
When it fails: No spare, no replacement, and often no answer before the shift starts.
Who carries it: You do, if an unpermitted overloaded van carrying your name has an accident.

Cheap per seat. Expensive once, and in a way no budget absorbs.

Run your own buses

Own the fleet, employ the drivers

Cost: Buses, a workshop, spares, two drivers per vehicle and a transport supervisor to run them.
Admin: A depot inside your plant, with its own rosters, permits and headaches.
When it fails: You bought spare capacity or you did not, and changeover is when you learn which.
Who carries it: You — permits, inspections, driver hours, welfare and every incident.

Right for very large fixed sites that already run their own workshop.

A contract with us

Vehicles, crews and cover, monthly

Cost: Fixed per vehicle per month, two drivers included. Around SAR 200 per worker.
Admin: One invoice, one coordinator, a log by shift rather than by day.
When it fails: The spare at your gate rolls inside 30 minutes; that run is not invoiced.
Who carries it: Us — permits, insurance, maintenance, driver hours and welfare.

The answer for any plant where a late changeover costs production.

On being undercut

We lose industrial tenders on price, and we usually know which line did it. A quote materially below ours is normally one driver covering three changeovers, no spare held anywhere, more people than seats, or a permit that does not cover the carriage. None of that is visible in a rate card and all of it is visible in an incident report. Ask any operator how many drivers they have rostered per vehicle, and the answer will tell you most of what you need.

What your shift headcount needs

Find your band, read across.

Indicative figures for a three-changeover day, seven days a week, from accommodation or district to gate — inclusive of both drivers, fuel, tolls, maintenance and insurance. Cost per worker counts everyone carried across all three shifts.

Up to 30per shift

Vehicles
1 × Coaster, two drivers
From, per month
SAR 18,000
Roughly per worker
SAR 200, about 90 people carried
Note
One vehicle can cover all three changeovers where the gate is close to the accommodation.
31 to 90per shift

Vehicles
2 × 49-seat coach, four drivers
From, per month
SAR 48,000
Roughly per worker
SAR 180, about 270 people carried
Note
Where the economics are best. Two coaches moving together beat four vans on every measure.
91 to 250per shift

Vehicles
5–6 coaches plus a site spare
From, per month
SAR 130,000
Roughly per worker
SAR 175, about 750 people carried
Note
A spare stationed at your gate becomes standard rather than optional at this size.
250 and aboveper shift

Vehicles
Dedicated fleet and an on-site coordinator
From, per month
Costed per route
Roughly per worker
From about SAR 160
Note
At this scale we staff a coordinator on your site through the changeovers.

A three-shift vehicle is not one and a half times an office vehicle — it is roughly two and a half, because it needs two drivers on a round-the-clock roster rather than one. That single line is the honest reason industrial quotes differ so widely, and it is worth asking every operator you are comparing. The two-run office rate is on Corporate Offices, and the full vehicle table on Factory Shift Transport.

Before anyone signs anything

Exactly who is responsible for what.

Industrial contracts touch your site rules, your security and your safety regime, so the boundary needs to be drawn more carefully here than anywhere else. This is the split we work to, in these words.

Responsibility split on an industrial contract
Item	Your side	Ours
The shift board	Send it, and send changes to it	Time every run backwards from it
Route and boarding points	Confirm accommodation and muster points	Survey, build and drive the routes before quoting
Gate access and site passes	Issue passes and site inductions for our crews	Put drivers through your induction and keep records current
Vehicles, fuel and maintenance	—	Entirely ours, inside the monthly figure
Drivers: salary, visa, accommodation	—	Entirely ours, and never your liability
Driver hours and rest	—	Two drivers per vehicle, rostered and rested
Seated capacity	Tell us the real headcount	Size the vehicles for it. We do not carry standing passengers
Permits, inspections and insurance	—	TGA permits and full passenger cover, evidenced for your audits
Shutdowns and overtime	Give us what notice you can	Surge vehicles at contract rates, not opportunistic ones
A vehicle off the road	Nothing	The gate spare rolls inside 30 minutes; that run is not invoiced
Attendance at the muster point	Your supervisor's call	Logged per shift and reported monthly
Escalation	One named contact per shift	One named coordinator, reachable through every changeover

Two rows there are the ones that matter in an audit. Driver employment is entirely ours, so salaries, visas, accommodation and working-hours obligations never reach your payroll or your liability. And seated capacity is not negotiable — if the headcount rises, the vehicle changes, not the loading. Cover terms are set out in full on Standby & Replacement Cover.

The line we will not cross

One seat, one belt, one person.

Somewhere in every industrial transport market there is an operator carrying fifty-five people in a forty-nine seat coach because the client asked and the price was agreed. We will not do it, and saying so has cost us tenders. It is the single clearest thing you can ask any operator to put in writing, and the answer tells you what kind of company you are about to put your workforce inside.

Two drivers per vehicle, rostered
A vehicle working three changeovers around the clock cannot be crewed by one man, whatever a cheaper quote implies. Ours carry two on a proper roster, and we would rather lose the tender than pretend otherwise.
Seated capacity, checked at the door
If forty-nine people are booked, forty-nine travel. When your headcount rises we change the vehicle, not the loading, and the driver is instructed to stop counting people on at capacity even when someone senior is asking him not to.
Arrival twenty minutes before the shift
Not at the start time. The margin exists so the outgoing crew leaves on time, and it is the cheapest insurance in the whole contract — a handful of minutes against a held changeover.
Cooling checked before every summer run
Not weekly, and not when someone complains. A coach carrying fifty people across an industrial estate at two in the afternoon in August is a serious piece of equipment, and it is treated like one.
Our drivers take your induction
Site rules, gate procedure, speed limits inside the fence, what to do in an evacuation. Your safety regime does not stop at the vehicle door, and treating our crews as visitors rather than as part of the site is how incidents happen.
Reporting by shift, not by day
Every changeover timed and logged, so a pattern in the 21:40 run shows up in a report rather than in a supervisor's complaint three months later. Sent monthly with the invoice, credits already applied.

Industrial transport questions

Asked by operations and by procurement.

Usually in that order, and usually with different concerns.

What does factory shift transport cost per worker?

Around SAR 160 to SAR 200 per worker per month on a three-changeover day, counting everyone carried across all three shifts. One Coaster serving 90 workers at SAR 18,000 a month is about SAR 200 each; a large site with a dedicated fleet comes down towards SAR 160. The vehicle costs the same whoever is in it, so the number falls as headcount rises.

Why is a three-shift vehicle more than an office vehicle?

Because it needs two drivers rather than one. A vehicle working changeovers at 05:40, 13:40 and 21:40 cannot legally or safely be crewed by a single man, so a three-shift vehicle costs roughly two and a half times a two-run office vehicle rather than one and a half. Any quote that does not reflect that is telling you something about its rostering.

What happens if a bus is late for a changeover?

The spare at your gate rolls inside 30 minutes, you hear from our coordinator within ten minutes with an honest time, and that run is not invoiced. Because a late changeover holds two shifts, arrival is targeted twenty minutes before the shift starts rather than at it — the margin exists precisely so a small delay is absorbed.

Do you ever carry standing passengers?

No. Seated capacity only, written into the contract, and the driver is instructed to stop at capacity even when someone senior on site is asking him not to. If your headcount rises, the vehicle changes rather than the loading. It has cost us tenders and we would make the same choice again.

Can you handle a shutdown or a turnaround?

Yes, and it is the part worth planning earliest. A maintenance shutdown can double headcount for two or three weeks. Give us the dates as soon as you have them and the surge vehicles are committed at contract rates with crews who already know the site, rather than found at spot prices the week before.

What about Friday shifts and Ramadan?

Both are planned, not improvised. Send the revised board and the runs are re-timed around it at no change to the monthly price. Ramadan usually reshapes the afternoon and night changeovers more than the morning, and we agree the new timings before the month rather than during its first week.

Will your drivers complete our site induction?

Yes, and we expect to. Site rules, gate procedure, internal speed limits and evacuation drill — our crews take your induction and we keep the records current as drivers change. Your safety regime should not stop at the vehicle door.

Can you collect from company accommodation?

Yes, and most industrial contracts work exactly that way — housing or camp to gate on a fixed loop, which is far simpler to run reliably than scattered city districts. Where part of the workforce lives in the city, that becomes a second route rather than a detour on the first.

What documentation can you provide for HSE and audit?

Transport General Authority permits for the carriage we are doing, current vehicle inspections, full passenger insurance, driver licences and induction records, and monthly punctuality reporting by shift. Industrial clients are audited on their contractors, so we keep these ready rather than assembling them under pressure.

What is the minimum contract?

One vehicle for one month. Most clients start with a three-month trial on a single route and extend once they have seen a full month of punctuality reporting, which is the right way round.