About Stagecoach South West

Key facts May 2015 – April 2016

• 32.1 million passenger journeys 
• 17.94 million miles operated 
• 1197 employees 
• 358 vehicles 
• 99.7% reliability 
• 96% punctuality 
•  £13 million invested in 61 new buses and 8 new coaches

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Our passengers

We carried 32.1 million passengers during the year, up by 6.7% on the year before, and received 3,338 complaints. This averages at one in every 19,632 passengers. 

 We always meet our industry's code of practice, and investigate every complaint we get. These complaints are always fixed and logged to prevent them happening again.

Our staff

We're a major local employer and currently have: 

• 983 drivers 
• 146 engineers and cleaners 
• 68 supervisors managers and administration staff 
• 5 apprentices 

 We heavily invest in our staff's training. Our drivers have all completed the first five stages of their Certificate of Professional Competence (CPC). 

 Our supervisors and managers have all completed their necessary training courses.

Our services

We covered 17.94 million miles over the year, up by 8.31% on 2014-15. 

 Our key measure of performance is reliability and punctuality. In the past year, we ran 99.7% of our scheduled services. 96% of our services ran within five minutes of their scheduled times, with traffic congestion being the main cause of delay. 

 We work in partnership with local authorities to continually develop and improve our services.

Our fares

We offer value for money fares and tickets options including standard single and return fares and unlimited travel zone tickets.

We also have a range of special tickets for Exeter University students, young people and jobseekers.

We increased fares once during the year, by an average of 1.3%. The relatively low level of this year's increase reflected the reduction in consumer fuel prices and includes many fares being frozen, particularly in Torbay. 

Our fleet

We operate a fleet of 409 buses and coaches. We  replaced 34 buses over the past year as well as purchasing 27 buses  for our Plymouth operation. We also bought 8 coaches for our South West Falcon coach service. In total, we invested £13 million. 

All of our fleet is low floor to provide easy access for the elderly, disabled and buggies. 

Every vehicle is cleaned daily and the average age of our vehicles is 6.5 years old. 

Servicing our buses 

The safety of our customers is paramount. Our vehicles are inspected at least once every three weeks, and maintained to much higher standards than the law requires. 

In addition, every vehicle is cleaned daily. 

Free Wi-Fi

We have fee WiFi on the South West Falcon, all of our Gold bus routes, our Exeter city E/F1/F2 routes, Red Park & Ride and the majority of our new Plymouth network buses. USB charging is also available on our Gold 57 and Falcon routes.

Our environment

We used 10.5 million gallons of diesel last year, at an average of 7.78 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. 

Our Ecodriver system is installed on all of our vehicles and provides drivers with real-time feedback on their driving style, reducing accidents and improving fuel consumption. 

Our buses also have an Automatic Vehicle Location  (AVL) system on board which allows us to manage our services more effectively on a day-to-day basis.

An annual bonus scheme rewards drivers for consistent ‘green’ driving and, if required, additional training and support is provided. 

All our fleet runs on 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. 100% of our fleet meets at least the Euro 3 standard  and, out of that, 62% is Euro5 or above.

We recycle most of our waste, such as litter, used oils, filters, batteries, parts, etc. We also recycle the water we use to wash our vehicles every night.