About Stagecoach South Wales

Key facts May 2018 – April 2019 

• 23 million passengers 
• 15.6 million miles operated 
• 880 employees 
• 340 buses 
• 99.3% reliability 
• 89% punctuality 
• £4 million invested in 31 new buses

Follow us and tweet your questions and comments to @stagecoachwales 

Our passengers 

We carried a total of 23 million passengers over the year, and received a total of 1820 passenger comments about our services, it has never been easier to contact us by email, online and through twitter. That equates to one complaint per 12,648 passenger journeys. We comply with our industry code of practice, and every complaint is investigated and action taken to avoid repetition of the problem. We respond to all of our customers within 7 days, and resolve our customers comments within 21 days.

Our staff 

We’re a major employer in our area and have a highly skilled and diverse team, which includes: 

•  744 drivers 
• 108 maintenance staff
• 28 administrators, supervisors and managers 

We continue to invest in training our staff. Every driver undertakes a training day each year to enable them to hold a Certificate of Professional Competence (CPC). We employ up to 10 apprentices to provide skills for the future. Our supervisors and managers have all completed the relevant training courses in order they may fulfil their various job roles.

Our services

We operated a total of 15.6 million miles over the year. We have observed a change in customer travel patterns which we believe has been influenced by; highest ever car ownership in Wales, plentiful and cheap town and city centre car parking, socioeconomic and demographic reasons for patronage change, with the adverse effects of
traffic congestion acting to deter bus travel through longer and unpredictable journey times as reported by Greener Journeys.*
* http://stge.co/iaXb30cweTS

In spite of these challenges we have continued to invest in new buses and more bus journeys, with Gold standard buses (including free Wi-Fi and USB charging points). We have
also extended services with the T14 (Hereford – Brecon) now serving Cardiff, the services 25 and 132 serving Cardiff Bay with more Sunday services in Cwmbran, Merthyr and
Aberdare. The Service 50A now providing a service to the Royal Gwent Hospital from Caerphilly.

Our key measure of performance is the reliability and punctuality of our services. In the past year we operated 99.3% of our scheduled mileage, with 0.47% failure due to internal reasons, and 0.23% due to external reasons such as adverse weather (0.04%), congestion, diversions and road closures etc. accounting for the rest. Our reliability
is greatly affected by other road users; congestion, road traffic accidents and incidents, road maintenance and utility maintenance providing for high levels of disruption.

We digitally monitor our services for punctuality and 89% of our services operated within 6 minutes of their scheduled journey start time; traffic congestion, uncoordinated road
works, utility works and lack of bus priority measures being the main reason for delays. We continue to seek improvements both through rescheduling services (adding resource and therefore cost) and through consultation with the local highway authorities for new and more effective bus priority measures. We continue to invest in additional resources to maintain as punctual a service as possible.

Our fares 

We have promoted bus travel with a number of offers;

• We were the first major operator in Wales to offer customers contactless payment on all our Buses. Remembering Stagecoach drivers will give change on bus.
• With our new app we now sell tickets on mobile phones.
• Travel for the unemployed at 50% discount.
• Customer discount of up to 12% (when compared to weekly tickets) with megarider Xtra the monthly unlimited travel ticket which automatically renews and paid for by credit/debit card.
• Promotional campaigns door to door and through digital means to remind residents of how frequent and cheap Stagecoach bus services are compared to the cost of car travel and parking.
• With Stagecoach smartcard customers buy their ticket online and make greater savings.
• Special offers; discounted megarider Xtra tickets in the following ticket zones; Caerphilly/Cardiff, Cardiff, Cwmbran/Newport, Islwyn, Newport, Pontypridd/Cardiff, South Wales.
• Extended Caerphilly travel zone to incorporate Ystrad Mynach Hospital.
• Introduced a new 12 tripper ticket, ideal for part-time workers, in Cwmbran and now available in Cardiff. 

With TFW Rail we offer Bus & Rail ticketing with the Rail Road ticket, buy your day or week ticket for Cardiff on the bus changing onto rail at your nearest station at Aberdare, Porth and Caerphilly. Plus Explore Cardiff & Valleys and Night Rider, in the Aberdare, Caerphilly, Cwmbran and Merthyr Tydfil areas: train tickets are available for purchase
on your local bus for connecting travel by rail to Cardiff:
https://bit.ly/2XRdcgO
https://bit.ly/2G1jdNA

With Bus and Rail ticketing being available across the Stagecoach South Wales network through PLUSBUS:
http://www.plusbus.info/

We work with other Bus operators in South East Wales to offer multi-operator bus ticketing with NetworkRider:
https://goo.gl/fPtPmE

Keeping bus fares competitive and introducing special offer bus ticket deals are aimed at halting the trend toward travel by car. Plentiful and low cost car parking in the town and
city centres are acting to increase traffic congestion which detracts from bus travel and increases the cost of bus travel as more resources are required in order to keep the bus running on time.

Since 1995 bus speeds have reduced by over 20% due to increasing traffic congestion and a lack of effective bus priority measures. This detracts from the customer experience putting pressure on revenue and increasing bus operator costs. 

Our fleet 

We operate a fleet of 340 buses and coaches, of which we successfully bid for over £4 million of funding for 31 new buses, including 16 full electric buses

Servicing our buses

All our vehicles are inspected, brake tested and emissions tested by our maintenance teams at least every 28 days, using DVSA approved test equipment, and maintained to higher standards than the legal minimum to ensure safety and comfort. Every vehicle is cleaned daily, fortnightly with a mini valet and fully valeted at no more than 28 day intervals. We have achieved DVSA Earned Recognition accreditation.

Our environment 

We used just over 8.3 million litres of diesel last year, an average of 9.6 miles per gallon.

We are working to improve fuel consumption through technical measures, and all our drivers have completed a safe and fuel-efficient driving course. Stagecoach has achieved the Carbon Trust Standard for reducing energy consumption, and has announced a challenging CO2 reduction programme for the years ahead.

We have increased the number of Euro VI vehicles in the fleet by 21 and by improving MPG efficiency, we’ve reduced the amount of nitrous oxide as an emission. All our fleet runs on ultra low sulphur diesel, with a high-tech additive Envirox™ to reduce pollution and improve fuel consumption. Vehicle engines must meet increasingly higher Euro standards of exhaust emissions. Over two thirds of the fleet are fitted with Euro 5 or 6 engines.

We recycle most of our waste, such as paper, cardboard, plastics, used oils, filters, batteries, parts, etc. We recycle bus washing water on most of our sites, and this will increase as bus washing machines are upgraded.