About Stagecoach South Wales

Key facts May 2020 – April 2021

• 6.6 million passenger journeys
• 9.8 million miles operated 
• 795 employees 
• 340 buses 
• 99.8% reliability 
• 93% punctuality 

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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 Gwen 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. 

We carried a total of 6.6 million passengers over the year, a reduction of 68% over the prior year due to the COVID pandemic striking from late March 2020. We received a total of 1,395 passenger comments about our services, many comments referring to customer adherence with COVID regulations whilst travelling on buses, and after the first lock-down easing, many buses were full due to restrictions over the number of seats that may be used on buses due to social distancing. That equates to one comment for every 4,730 passenger journeys, reflecting low patronage and a high level of COVID related feedback from customers. We comply with our industry code of practice, and every observation received is investigated and action taken to avoid repetition, which includes regular dialogue with Welsh Government with regard COVID regulations/restrictions affecting buses. We respond to all of our customers with an initial response within 7 days, and a full response to our customer’s comment within 21 days.

Our people

It’s our people who make our service special. They do more than make the wheels go round; they are the very spirit of Stagecoach. From bus drivers, to engineers, cleaners and customer service staff. We’re a major employer in our area and have a highly skilled and diverse team, which includes: 

•  656 drivers 
• 107 maintenance staff
• 19 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 13 apprentices to provide skills for the future, all of whom have been retained throughout the pandemic.

Our services

We operated a total of 9.8 million miles over the year, that is 33% less than the prior year operated mileage. Most bus services were maintained at a skeleton service level through to the end of the summer in order to provide keyworkers with access to transport for work and maintaining links to supermarkets for essential shopping.

Although a pandemic year, one of our key measure of performance is the reliability and punctuality of our services. In the past year we operated 99.8% of our scheduled mileage, with 0.12% failure due to external reasons, and 0.10% due to internal reasons such as adverse weather (0.02%), congestion, diversions and road closures etc accounting for the rest. Our reliability is greatly affected by external reasons outside of our control as we share the highway with all other users.

We monitor our services for punctuality and 93% of our services operated within 5 minutes of their scheduled journey start time. Although a pandemic year, we continue to seek improvements both through rescheduling services and where appropriate through consultation with the local highway authorities for new and more effective bus priority measures for the future. We continue to invest in additional resources to maintain as punctual a service as possible.

Our tickets and tech 

Our fares have not changed since 2018/19, other than the temporary exact fare system for the COVID period, to reduce the risk of virus spreading through contact with bank notes and coins.

• Promoted online and mobile tickets to customers to help reduce tickets bought on bus and contact free payments.
• Introduced £1 Cardiff City Centre hop on ticket for connectivity with Cardiff Rail Station.
• 12 trip flexible tickets in Cardiff, Cwmbran and Newport now available to buy as a mobile ticket on the Stagecoach App.
• Offered free travel to NHS staff from March until September 2020.
• You can now gift mobile tickets to another customer or transfer mobile tickets between devices.
• Introduced an exact fare policy on board in May 2020 following COVID safety travel guidance to protect staff and customers, raising over £55K for NHS charities together COVID-19 appeal.

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.

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

Our fleet 

We operate a fleet of 340 buses and coaches, of which we successfully bid for 29 to be converted from Euro V emissions to Euro VI for operations in Cardiff. We are fully compliant with PSVAR regulations, which means all our vehicles are easily accessible, replacing non compliant B10M coaches with double deck buses in the autumn of 2019.
All our vehicles are inspected, brake tested and emissions tested by our maintenance teams at 28 day intervals, using DVSA approved test equipment, and maintained to higher standards than the legal minimum to ensure safety and comfort is delivered consistently.

During the pandemic, cleaning processes were enhanced, vehicle ventilation improved, all paper including newspaper withdrawn, hand sanitiser provided on buses, social distancing on buses and exact fare system introduced to reduce the risk of spreading the virus on buses. Prior to the pandemic, we have already achieved DVSA Earned Recognition accreditation. 

Our environment 

We used just over 4.4 million litres of ultra-low sulphur diesel last year, an average of 10 miles per gallon. We are working to reduce fuel consumption through driver telematics technology, engine management and all our drivers have completed a safe and fuel-efficient driving course which we refresh at regular intervals. Stagecoach has achieved the Carbon Trust Standard for reducing energy consumption, and has announced a challenging CO2 reduction programme for the years ahead.

We will be increasing the number of Euro VI vehicles in the fleet by 29 through the upgrading of Euro V exhaust systems to Euro VI and by improving MPG efficiency by 5%, 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. 75% of the fleet are fitted with Euro 5 or Euro 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.

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

Our communities

While we may have seen a lot of change in our four decades of business, our mission has always been the same: connecting people and communities.

We continue to support the local communities across South Wales. We’re not just a servant of the community, we’re at the heart of it #proudtoserve