Member Article

Stagecoach celebrates excellent year

Stagecoach North East is celebrating after its annual report showed the bus operator carried 82 million passengers over the past year.

The busses 473 busses covered 23 million miles, and managed 99.3 percent of all scheduled routes.

These results were all the more pleasing for Stagecoach in consideration of the difficult economic climate, which has put pressure on the operator to ensure they offer increased value and accessibility to the communities it serves.

John Conroy, Managing Director, Stagecoach North East says: “The impressive results contained within our annual report are testament to the dedication of all our employees to provide an outstanding service across the North East and our commitment to enhancing travel options and customer service levels continues to drive forward the ongoing popularity of our services.

Stagecoach have also invested heavily in training and environmentally friendly transport, two factors which have contributed heavily to the companies success.

Over 74 percent of staff at Stagecoach have been put through a NVQ, and the company is currently employing 10 engineering apprentices across six depots in the region.

The bus operator has also invested £4.5 million over the past year in 32 low floor, environmentally friendly vehicles, and has spent a further £593,000 on employee training to ensure that employees understand company safety procedures for the busses. Under the company’s environmental initiative Ready Steady Green, Stagecoach has cut energy consumption by 14 percent.

Stagecoach has shown a commitment to supporting local charities, and has recently introduced the Service to the Community award to recognise staff going above and beyond the call of duty.

John added:“In the past 12 months we have helped our staff to raise £10,292 for local charities and have worked with community organizations to raise awareness of public transport and enable more people to access our services safely and simply.

“We are very proud of our employees for both their work performance and their individual achievements; in the past year we have seen one of our drivers come runner up in the National Transport Awards Frontline Employee of the Year, our Marketing Manager received an internal Stagecoach Champion award for the Ready Steady Green project and numerous individual charity and community efforts from those within the workforce

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .