Our community

We play a big part in the local community and we enable thousands of people to go about their everyday activities.

We have Quality Bus Partnership schemes set up in the majority of the main urban areas in the region, where we work together with our partners, in particular local authorities, to improve local bus services. 

We work with various local charities and are currently partnered with Demelza Hospice Care for Children – a registered charity providing palliative, respite, end-of-life and bereavement care to life-limited children, young adults, and their families. They have a hospice in Kent and a ‘hospice at home’ service in East Sussex.

Our customers

Our customers are at the heart of what we do. Whether it’s Steve on his way to a job interview, using the bus for the first time in ages or Moira who’s making her twice-weekly trip to see her grandkids, Finn taking the school bus or Jasmine heading back to university our services are an important part of the community.

We love our regular customers, getting to know their routines and sharing in their day-to-day lives. It’s always great to welcome new faces on board, too, and we’re happy to help get them where they need to be.  

Our people

It’s our people who make our service special. They do more than make the wheels go round; and that's why every month we share a different 'Day in the Life' of a Stagecoach South East employee with our customers. 

We employ 1,300 people, operate 439 buses, and over the course of a year, our buses travel 18 million miles on the roads of Kent and East Sussex - that's the same distance as going to the moon and back 38 times!

Our services

Our mission for every journey is simple: get everyone safely where they need to be, every day. 

If you’ve got a journey to take, we’ve got a service to help you make it. Our local buses are ideal for daily travel either for leisure or work. Even if you work a little further from home, our interurban services will help you get there.

When the British weather allows, our open top buses are the perfect way to experience the beautiful scenery of places like the Kent coast or Hastings seafront. 

When it comes to Education, we’ve got that covered, too, with dedicated school services, and great value travel to colleges and universities. Plus, our Stagecoach Solutions team can arrange travel for events, businesses and rail replacement.

We constantly review our safety procedures and, as we’re all too aware since the unscheduled arrival of Coronavirus, we’re placing even more emphasis on cleaning. We already had a great cleaning schedule in place but we’ve taken it to the next level, focusing on the areas of the bus in which you’re most likely to come into contact. 

We’re constantly working hard to increase the quality, reliability and frequency of our bus services to offer car users a realistic transport alternative. Not only will this help with the usual congestion and car parking hassles, but it’ll also help the environment by taking more cars off the road. 

Our tickets and tech

We’ve made the bus journey simple for everyone and embraced the changes that have come into effect over the past 40 years. Tickets can be bought in advance on our website or app or paid for with contactless on board.

Don’t worry if that’s not your thing, we still accept cash. Plus, our fares are among the lowest of any national UK bus company.  

We know there’s no such thing as “one size fits all” so we offer a wide range of tickets so you, our customer, can choose the best value travel for you. 

We’ve updated our website and app to make bus travel even easier. Catching the bus today, tomorrow or later? Our Plan your journey feature does exactly what it says on the tin so you can plan the date, time and route of your journey. Not sure where to wait for the bus? Use the website or app to find your nearest bus stop.   

We recently added a live map to our Stagecoach Bus App, letting you track where your bus is on the route and check if you’ve got time to grab a coffee before it arrives. Plus, our Busy Bus indicator on the app shows you when it’s the quietest time to travel. Forget time travel...this is travel for the 21st century. 

Our buses

We operate a fleet of 439 buses and have a programme of investment that replaces older vehicles each year - our entire fleet is DDA (Disability Discrimination Act) compliant.

New buses are introduced to our busiest routes, ensuring the highest possible number of customers benefit from these modern, comfortable and environmentally friendly vehicles.

All of our vehicles are inspected by our engineers every 4 weeks, to ensure safety and comfort. Every vehicle is cleaned daily.

Our environment

It’s never been more important to do the right thing when it comes to our environment. That’s why we continue to tackle climate change and boost air quality with each new vehicle that enters our fleet.

It’s about more than just our environmental responsibility on the road. Our company initiatives have helped cut buildings emissions by 21% and Stagecoach Group has been awarded the Carbon Trust Standard for measuring, managing and reducing our global carbon footprint.  

We have a company Green Team with members representing different job roles from all of our seven depots. The team has been given special training and looks at each depots energy, recycling and sustainability performance and suggests areas for further improvement.

All of our buses are equipped with an eco-driving system called Green Road. The system gives drivers an indication of how they are driving via a green, amber and red warning device which reduces fuel consumption by encouraging better driving practices.

Read more about our sustainability strategy and our drive to net zero