Stagecoach has begun a project to complete its first fully electric ‘depot of the future’ in Stockton-on-Tees. Jonathan Welch reports
When the seeds were sown in the late 1970s and early 1980s for what would become the company we know today as Stagecoach, its growth would have been unimaginable. In its early years as a bus operator, the firm took advantage of deregulation to innovate, first in the inter-city coach market then local buses. Among the humdrum activity of day to day bus operations, where the basic needs are for people to get from A to B safely and efficiently, preferably cheaply and on time, it’s easy to lose sight of the need for innovation.
And let’s not kid ourselves: love them or loathe them, electric buses have gone from being a depot curiosity as little as 10 years ago to something which is now mainstream for all of the large operators and many of the smaller ones, so another story about a big group buying electric buses could easily be overlooked as ‘just another one,’ such is the increasing pace of electrifciation. But with the launch of its planned complete overhaul of its Stockton-on-Tees depot, Stagecoach is taking a concept which has already begun to take off and pushing it one step further.
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