Stagecoach West expanding its operating area

Stagecoach West has seen major expansion in recent years. Managing Director Rupert Cox, who has risen through the ranks of the bus industry, talks to Richard Sharman about the operation

On Friday, 26 November 1993, Stagecoach Holdings acquired Western Travel. This group was formed on 31 October 1986 during a management buyout from the National Bus Company. The initial group of companies at the time of the buyout were Cheltenham & Gloucester, Swindon & District and Red & White.

Midland Red South was then purchased on 10 December 1987, further expanding the Western Travel operating area. The group’s final purchase prior to the Stagecoach takeover in 1993 was Circle-Line of Gloucester, which had amassed a large fleet of Bristol VRTs to operate local services in Gloucester in competition with Cheltenham & Gloucester.

Upon takeover in 1993, Stagecoach split the group up with Midland Red South becoming a separate operating company, leaving Cheltenham & Gloucester, Swindon & District and Red & White to form Stagecoach West & Wales. This was later split again in May 2003 to become Stagecoach West, with Stagecoach South Wales taking the Red & White business.

Managing Director Rupert Cox is no stranger to the business, having been the Commercial Manager from 2003 to 2007 and then returning in 2013 as Acting Operations Director, before taking on his current role from Ian Manning on 1 June 2014. [wlm_nonmember][…]

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Operating area
Depot locations are in Cheltenham, Gloucester, North Bristol (operated from the South Gloucestershire Coach & Bus depot), Ross-on-Wye, Stroud and Swindon.

Swindon’s Cheney Manor depot is a new build which opened on 28 February 2016, although the former depot at Eastcott Road is currently retained for the storage of the reserve fleet. Stroud depot also has capacity at the rear of the yard to store reserve or withdrawn vehicles.

The location of these depots allows Stagecoach West to be able to serve a large operating area, from Herefordshire down to Somerset, Oxfordshire down to Wiltshire, and Gloucestershire and South Gloucester in between. They also serve Monmouthshire in Wales from the Ross-on-Wye depot.

Stagecoach Gold 

Operations of Gold services in the West’s territory account for nine interurban services. These are the 10 Lower Tuffley to Cheltenham, 55 Swindon to Chippenham, 63 Forest Green to Gloucester, 66 Gloucester to Cheltenham via Stroud, 93 Arle Court Park & Ride to Cheltenham, 94 Gloucester to Cheltenham via Churchdown, 97/98 Gloucester to Cheltenham and the S6 Swindon to Oxford.

The S6 has recently been renumbered to fit in with the Stagecoach in Oxfordshire S Series network as it operates into Oxford city centre. This service also operates into a soon-to-be-introduced LEZ (Low Emissions Zone), so the fleet has been upgraded with 12 Cummins-powered ADL Enviro400 MMCs that are Euro VI.

“I have been lucky that I have been able to liaise with Martin Sutton from Stagecoach in Oxfordshire, who has been the leader for us in terms of taking the Oxford service to Euro VI,” Rupert said.

“The air quality issue is definitely something that we take seriously, and if we can get the politicians to buy into buses and convince them that the bus is part of the answer and not the villain, it will go a long way to helping us in the Gloucestershire context.

“Bristol are also talking about the air quality issue, but at the moment our fleet operating on contract work is already at Euro V and as the contract continues it will progress to Euro VI.”

Service 93 is interesting in that it’s the first dedicated Gold Park & Ride service in the group, having previously been operated by Bennetts Of Gloucester using Mercedes-Benz Citaros.

Rupert commented: “Operations started in May this year, and we were bold in that we managed to secure new vehicles for this route, with growth in mind. We have already seen significant growth on this route and, from our point of view, the revenue is where we expected it to be.

“From this month we made further improvements, adding more new vehicles and extending some of the journeys to Gloucester, as we feel that we could provide a lot more Cheltenham to Gloucester express journeys that serve the Park & Ride site. We have also started offering a Sunday service to see how passenger numbers are.”

The 94 service is another good example of where the Gold brand has given growth. It had been operating late night journeys on a Friday and Saturday for many years, but the service has recently gone 24 hours with a low single fare of £3.50 between 0100 and 0357hrs – which is much cheaper than a taxi. The 94-branded ADL Enviro400 MMCs have now been fitted with additional vinyls on the rear which say: ‘Never miss the last bus home.’

Commenting on the Gold services, Rupert said: “In 2009 we had started the first Gold route which was the 94 from Cheltenham to Gloucester. That service did really well and tied in with a substantial bus lane being put in. By the time I came back to West in 2013 the growth had stagnated, so we introduced new Enviro400 MMCs in 2016.

“The service also had a night bus for the last 18 years, which had been doing really well. In March this year we decided to take the service 24 hours, and we have seen 15% growth between 2100hrs and midnight since we made that change. So Gold has transformed the company a lot – one in three buses are now Gold.

“I have quite a strong view that Gold shouldn’t just be a bus route, it needs to have the right mix of ingredients – like high car-owning demographics and better quality buses – to target where there are new housing developments and areas where there is high traffic congestion.”

The Gold fleet has seen good investment over the last two years, with 10 new Scania/Enviro400 MMCs and 31 Cummins/Enviro400 MMCs now operating on the network.

As for the oldest of the Scania/ADL Enviro400s, which are coming up to 10 years old: “As a result of the new buses going into Swindon, we now have the seven oldest Gold Enviro400s going through the refurbishment process,” Rupert revealed.

“This will involve a full repaint into Gold livery and a complete retrim, which also involves removing the soft trim on the side walls and replacing it with the same spec that is on the new Gold Enviro400 MMCs. We have around 35 of these vehicles to refurbish so it will not be a quick fix, but the programme has started.”

Along with the normal Enviro400s, a number of former Stagecoach South Gold specification MAN/ADL Enviro300s are also operated from Stroud depot. These are currently going through an engine conversion programme, which will see the MAN unit replaced by a Cummins one.

Swindon changes

A notable change to the Swindon bus scene in February 2017 was the acquisition of council-owned Thamesdown Transport, which is now known as the Swindon Bus Company. I asked Rupert if this development had brought about much change: “We had a lot going on at the beginning, but in in the last six months things have been pretty settled in Swindon. We are hoping that, in the future, there can be more partnership thinking between us and GSC and with the borough council.

“Both operators have invested heavily in new vehicles, which is a really good place for the town’s bus network to be in, and we can use that to strengthen what goes on in the town by maximising bus lanes.

“We also have an interesting ticketing scheme whereby the only weekly or monthly ticket you can buy is a joint one, so there is no Megarider option unless you are going outside of the town. We are keen for that to stay in place and that it is well-marketed and used.”

Bristol and beyond
The acquisition of Wessex Bus from Rotala PLC has seen substantial expansion into new operating areas. Although Stagecoach West already had some presence in North Bristol, the services now being operated take its territory further to the south west serving areas such as Avonmouth, Brislington, Hengrove and Knowle. A contract service is also operated from Bristol Parkway to TSB’s Bradley Stoke offices Monday to Saturday at peak periods.

All operations moved from the former Wessex Avonmouth depot to the South Gloucestershire Bus & Coach (SGBC) depot at Gypsy Patch Lane in Bristol, which joins an allocation of 14 vehicles there that were already operating seven services in Bristol.

Commenting on the Bristol operations, Rupert said: “We have always had an aspiration to look for opportunities for growth. Back in 2007 we put in a tender for some Park & Ride services in Bristol, but we weren’t successful. We have always felt that there was an opportunity in Bristol; not on the core urban network – as First is doing a good job – but on some of the interurban markets and new developments around the outskirts.

“There are opportunities to do something different to what exists at the moment. It was always my aim that, if we could get a base down there off the back of gaining tendered services that had a four to five-year contract, that then meant it was less risky to try commercial ventures than having no revenue on day one and also having the cost of a base.

“We have essentially acquired some of the routes, contracts and around 50 members of staff which are drivers and skilled engineers from Wessex. Services-wise there is a mix of commercial, Bristol city and South Gloucestershire services and deals with major employers in the Aztec West area. Avonmouth also has huge potential in the future.

“We have also taken nine vehicles from the fleet which are all Enviro200s, bar one Optare Solo. But these will all go through the paint shop, retrim, vehicle tracking equipment, fitment and engineering work prior to entering service. It was really important to me that on day one of starting these new routes that the drivers all had Stagecoach uniform and were driving Stagecoach buses, so that passengers can see the change.”

“This has doubled what we do in Bristol. All of these services are running out of the SGBC at Gypsy Patch Lane, which can accommodate up to 80 vehicles. SGBC also has a contract to operate on the megabus.com network, and it also operates some school buses, but there is plenty of room for us to easily operate 40 buses from that site. We have a very good relationship with SGBC.”

Some double-decker school services have also commenced in Bristol; I asked if this was something that we would see more of in that area: “There is definitely room for expansion – the school bus operation is actually commercially operated.

“The way that our fleet has changed over the last year has meant we have a number of Tridents that we can use for this type of work. They are also handy for Cheltenham Races, the International Air Tattoo and other events that we run services for. So, having work to keep these vehicles busy during the week is ideal.”

Past innovation in Bristol had seen the introduction of the Belles Express in March 2015, a coach service from Gloucester to Bristol via Cribbs Causeway, Ministry of Defence at Abbeywood and the University of the West of England. The service used Plaxton Panthers that had been ousted from Stagecoach East’s X5 service from Cambridge to Oxford by new Plaxton Elites.

Initially, the service operated at an hourly frequency, but it was reduced to a three-hour frequency in July 2015 and subsequently withdrawn in September 2016. Despite the service’s withdrawal, it does show that Stagecoach West is not afraid to try new markets.

Recent tender gains closer to the original operating territory have seen an additional three services taken on for Gloucestershire County Council around Gloucester and Tewkesbury so far this year, with Service N in Cheltenham being announced as a further contract gain from the end of this month.

Gloucester transport hub 

A brand-new bus station has just been completed in Gloucester city centre. Built along the side of the old bus station, it will drastically improve the working environment for staff and the travelling public.

“It will open on the last weekend of October and will transform the interurban network by having somewhere that people will actually want to wait for the bus,” said Rupert.

“All services that currently use the old bus station will move to the new bus station, along with our operations team that currently work out of a rented office in the city centre. There will also be a driver’s rest room and travel shop. The day-to-day running of the bus station will be Stagecoach West’s responsibility.

“Each of the bays will be fitted with real-time displays so the customer will know when their bus is due. There is a launch event on Friday 26 October, customer open day on 27 and vehicles will start operating into there from the 28.”

Standardising the fleet
The fleet inherited from Western Travel was very much a mixed bag, consisting of Bristol VRT, Leyland Olympian/Titan/Tiger, National and National 2 and for the Metro minibus fleet Ford Transits, various Mercedes-Benz minibuses and MCW Metroriders.

Western Travel had also started to refurbish its own fleet prior to takeover, with Bristol VRTs and Leyland Nationals going through a full interior refresh which included new flooring and a seat retrim. The Leyland Nationals were badged as the Leyland National 3 upon completion.

The fleet names and liveries associated with Western Travel, which were Black & White, Cheltenham District, City of Gloucester, Cotswold, Stroud Valleys and Swindon & District soon gave way to Stagecoach stripes. At least apart from Circle Line, which maintained a simplified white and green livery and continued to operate as a budget unit with older Stagecoach group vehicles being transferred in.

Through the late ‘90s and early ‘00s the fleet started to look more like a standard Stagecoach operation, with Alexander PS/Rs and later on the full array of ALX products. The total (including training and reserve vehicles) as of 22 October consists of 368 vehicles. 102 of those are Scania-based ADL Enviro products and 195 are Cummins-based ADL products, with the balance

being 24 MAN/ADL Enviro300s and ALX300s, 37 Optare Solos, eight Optare Versas and two Volvo B10M training vehicles.

These totals include the vehicles transferred with the Wessex operation and recent ADL Enviro300 transfers from Stagecoach Merseyside.

In terms of heritage, one ADL Enviro200 was delivered in Cheltenham District livery in 2014 and still wears this livery. An ECW-bodied Bristol VRT in Stagecoach stripes, 19950 JOU160P, is also owned and sees use for social club events and at the Cheltenham races. It also recently featured in the Beer and Buses event on the Isle of Wight.

Driver training and recruitment
Recruitment has been an issue for the industry for some time; the starting salary of at driver at Stagecoach West is £22k. Rupert continued: “We have never generally had an issue finding people to become a driver, and our preference is to take on non-PCV drivers.

“Our biggest challenge as a management team is the retention of staff. We want to improve in that area by ensuring that we are keeping pay rates competitive. We have 150 more drivers now than we did four years ago, so we have had to keep pace with turnover and recruit a large number of extra drivers.

“Our biggest challenge recently has been recruiting enough skilled mechanics, which is an area where we have had to improve our pay rates to help with recruitment.”

Stagecoach West has a large geographical spread of depots, meaning that some training has to be centralised: “We have a driver trainer at each depot, and then we have our own delegated driving examiner. Our central training school is now in Stroud, where we carry out CPC courses and new driver training. The trainee then goes with a driver trainer from the depot that they will be working from.

“We are currently in the process of changing the training bus fleet to MAN/ALX300s from Versas and B10M coaches, as we feel that they are a good size and it will also reduce the age of the training fleet,” Rupert said. In terms of the sort of timeframe it takes to train a new driver, he added: “We generally work on the basis of six weeks, but if they have experience of driving larger vehicles, then it can be sooner.

“We then carry out three-month and six-month job chats with them, and after a year they are invited to head office to speak to me, the Training Coordinator and the Operations Director to get their feedback on how training went, what the reality is and if we can improve on anything.”

To see the full operator fleet list, visit:
bit.ly/stagecoachfleet

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