About Stagecoach South Wales

Key facts May 2017 – April 2018 

• 23.2 million passengers 
• 15.4 million miles operated 
• 850 employees 
• 345 buses 
• 98.6% reliability 
• 91.9% punctuality 
•  £4 million invested in 25 new buses

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Our passengers 

We carried a total of 24 million passengers over the year, and received a total of 1736 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 14,032 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: 

•  730 drivers 
• 121 engineers and cleaners 
• 54 administrators, supervisors and managers 

We train all of our staff to the highest possible standards. Every driver has a Certificate of Professional Competence (CPC) and our supervisors and managers all have relevant qualifications. We employ 9 apprentices to provide skills for the future. 

Our services

We operated a total of 15.8 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, low fuel prices, increase in the number of people in work with no fixed employment site, online shopping and home delivery reducing shopping trips with those reaching the age to receive a free concessionary bus pass more than ever before having access to a car, with the adverse effects of traffic congestion acting to deter bus travel as reported by Greener Journeys*.

In spite of these challenges we have continued to invest in new buses and more journeys with an increase to frequencies on services 132 & 50 and a new Sunday service for the X3. Investment in Free Wi-Fi on buses and USB charging points. Service 132 (Maerdy - Pontypridd - Cardiff) now runs with buses featuring all these facilities plus high back leatherette seating for greater comfort.

Our key measure of performance is reliability and punctuality of our services. In the past year we operated 99.6% of our scheduled mileage, with 0.2% failure due to internal reasons and 0.2% due to external reasons such as adverse weather, congestion, diversions and road closures etc. We monitor our services for punctuality and 91.6% of our services operated within 6 minutes of their scheduled time, traffic congestion being again the main reason for delay. We continue to seek improvements both through rescheduling services and through consultation with the local highway authorities for new and more effective bus priority measures.

*Greener Journeys Report

Our fares 

We increased fares on 25th March 2017, having frozen fares since April 2014. We have promoted bus travel with a number of offers;

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.

Our fleet 

We operate a fleet of 343 buses and coaches, of which we replaced 24 over the past year with an investment of £4 million. 

Servicing our buses

All our vehicles are inspected, brake tested and emissions tested by our engineers 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.

Our environment 

We used just over 9.2 million litres of diesel last year, an average of 9.29 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 Group has achieved the Carbon Trust Standard for reducing energy consumption, and has announced a challenging CO2 reduction programme for the years ahead.

We have reduced CO2 emissions per mile by over 10% in 5 years through new business investment with increasingly environmentally friendlier engines.All our fleet runs on low sulphur bio 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 4, 5 or 6 engines with 210 buses fitted with Euro 5 and 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 replaced with newer more environmentally friendly models.