HOWZAT

By comparison, its UK bus division, which provides more than a third of Arriva’s £1.7 billion turnover and almost half the group’s operating profit, is a more reliable performer. But how much of that is propped up by taxpayers’ subsidies? Davies doesn’t blanch. “Yes, we have benefited from Ken Livingstone’s policies in London, but what doesn’t come across is how much we have invested here. I think over the last four years we have put £150m into new vehicles in London — that’s a pretty big commitment. And remember, every bus route is a different contract. Our success is in maintaining those contracts day in, day out, consistently.”

And rural buses? Either they seem to run empty at odd times of day, or you can never find one. The point is, retorts Davies quickly, that most rural bus services are not subsidised. To run more services, more people would have to use them.

“But I really do think bus services are as good now as they were when we were growing up,” he adds. “It’s just a more complicated environment, with more congestion. It takes a lot of effort to make buses work well.”

He speaks carefully, logically, the flat vowels of Yorkshire just detectable in his detailed arguments. Davies was born on the west side of Sheffield, and split his upbringing between Yorkshire and Scotland, where his father, a steel- industry geologist, moved the family. There the hard-work ethic and “nowt flash” exterior were no doubt reinforced.

Hence Davies has a reputation as a reserved man who throws himself into work with a commitment he also expects from others. That stems from a varied career — Ford, Coopers & Lybrand, Waterford Wedgwood, Ferranti, East Midlands Electricity — which has had its ups and downs. Ferranti’s receivership was one low point.

Sir Nigel Rudd, now chairman of Boots, who hired him as finance director for East Midlands from Ferranti, says that Davies’s Ford training, with its emphasis on costs, was his key quality. “Bob’s a tough manager, strong on detail,” says Rudd. “The Ford training is always good news.”

Yet at Arriva, where Davies moved after East Midlands, his initial prospects seemed poor. By 1998 the company had posted two profit warnings and hit a hitch selling its fleet- management business. “We were half in the motor trade and half in public transport,” says Davies. “It wasn’t a very attractive proposition for investors.”

But Davies persevered. Fleet management went in 1999. The car dealerships went last year. Only a vehicle-rental division is left. Davies’s success in refocusing the business should not be underestimated, says Gareth Cooper, Arriva’s chairman.

“It’s very difficult to change a business with that kind of history, but Bob has done it in a very single-minded way,” says Cooper. “And the move into Europe has set us apart from the other UK transport groups.”

Now Arriva’s main competition is its French rival, Connex, and the toughest choices facing Davies are how he co-ordinates the firm’s growing number of foreign subsidiaries, especially as privatisation opportunities spread into new EU member states.

That means he’ll be spending more time on the hoof, moving quietly through employees’ offices, with even less opportunity to indulge his one passion: the 1936 soft-top Bentley in which he tootles round the Dales on days off.

“It’s ex-petrolhead stuff,” he sighs, alluding to the obsession with vintage cars shared by so many motor-industry veterans.

Fix it up himself? “No,” he says, laughing, “that’s where my money goes!” And having headed Arriva for six years, does he foresee a time when he’ll step down? He tenses slightly, and nods, saying: “Sure, there’s a natural time to go.” Then he draws my attention to a remark by Lord Puttnam, the film producer. “He said he stopped making films when he noticed that every time he made a decision he referred to something he had done in the past.”

Davies pauses, broadening his shoulders before adding: “I’m not at that point yet.”