Maxson Goh speaks to Stagecoach Manchester Managing Director Rob Jones about the shift from commercial to franchised operations and his role in preserving the company’s history
The fifth of January 2025 saw the end of commercial bus operations in Greater Manchester, with tranche three of the Bee Network franchising model underway. For the first time in nearly four decades, all buses were under local control, to use the current buzzword. I caught up with Stagecoach Manchester Managing Director Rob Jones at the operator’s Queens Road depot to find out how it is navigating the transition while honouring its past.
A lifetime with buses
Rob, whose passion for buses was unmistakable, began by recounting his decades-long journey that brought him to his current role. “I started in the bus industry when I was 15, being a bus washer as a Saturday job. From there I progressed to a full-time job working as a yard hand, cleaning and fuelling buses and prepping them for MOTs. I started driving when I was 18 and then progressed from there up to junior management with First Bus in Chester, and from
there I joined Stagecoach in 2004 as the operations manager in Preston.”
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