A BUS manager has told how grateful she is to her staff after she received an award at the Queen’s honours.

Victoria Garcia is the accessibility and community manager at Brighton and Hove and Metrobus.

She has been making travel by public transport more accessible for disabled people.

She received an MBE for her dedication to transport in the community at the Queen’s Honours this month.

She said: “It’s been a real honour to meet and collaborate with so many wonderful people from charities and other partner organisations and so many users of public transport.

“To receive this personal honour for working with these amazing people is overwhelming and humbling.

“I’m so grateful for their help in making our services more accessible.

“A huge thank you to them, my colleagues, my family, the people who nominated me and to my boss Martin Harris who has supported, encouraged and believed in me and my work. I have the best job in the world.

“My only regret is that my mother wasn’t here for this as she had such respect for the Queen, it would have made her very proud.”

Managing director Mr Harris said: “This personal honour for Victoria is so thoroughly well deserved – her passion for her work is boundless. It’s so important that someone contributing to accessible travel, not just for our services, but increasingly influencing the entire industry, has received this recognition.

“Her work in directly engaging the community in designing accessible public transport solutions has been inspirational and this is a strong and clear signal of the way forward.”

Martin said Victoria had been instrumental in a number of initiatives for accessible bus design, including effective hearing loops, dementia-friendly colour schemes, more manoeuvrable spaces and safety poles.

She has also led on the development of a passenger assistance card known as Helping Hand.

The card is now used by people travelling by bus and taxi and has been rolled out across parent company Go-Ahead’s bus services.

As well as her work for local bus services, Victoria is the chairwoman for one of the community rail partnerships and has recently joined the Department for Transport’s accessibility team for a six-month secondment.