DRIVING NET ZERO: Better places to live and work.
Our long term plan to deliver better places to live and work in the towns and cities we are proud to serve across the country. See our strategy 
PLANET
We have a responsibility to understand our impacts on our planet and take steps to protect our environment for future generations. Our role includes working with our stakeholders to address climate change, deliver cleaner air, minimise waste, conserve water, and protect biodiversity and natural resources.
PROSPERITY
We want to play our part in building sustainable communities. Our aim is to generate long-term value through employment and wealth generation, paying our way in taxes which fund vital public services, contributing to a fairer society, challenging convention, and championing new ideas.
PEOPLE
Our people are fundamental to our success and we have a duty to develop a diverse and inclusive team that reflects the communities we serve. It is also central to delivering for our customers and maximising the benefit from our wider value chain as we look to shape and transform future mobility for everyone.
CASE STUDIES
Environment
Working with our suppliers
We rely on a range of suppliers to provide goods and services linked to our transport operations. These include vehicle manufacturers, fuel suppliers, IT companies and uniform manufacturers. We are constantly looking to develop new solutions and ways of making our operations more sustainable. We are sensitive to the fact that noise from transport operations may impact people living near our services and our facilities. As part of working hard to be good community neighbours, we have worked with tyre supplier Bridgestone on the trial and roll-out of their quietest bus and coach tyre. Now in service on our electric bus fleet in Manchester, the new tyre comes with decreased rolling resistance and extended mileage to reduce fuel consumption and CO2 emissions and fulfil the requirements of electric and hybrid bus fleets.
Conserving water
Water is a growing resource challenge for large parts of our planet. Stagecoach operates a large fleet of vehicles and we are proud of keeping them clean, attractive and comfortable for our customers. At the same time, we focus on practical water management at sites and promote responsible water use among our local managers and employees. We recycle a significant proportion of our waste water from our vehicle cleaning activities through reclaim/recycling units in our bus wash facilities. Our new bus wash facilities use less power and less water per wash cycle, lowering their through life footprint. In addition, we have achieved significant reductions in water consumption as a result of installing urinal cistern controls at bus depots, using lower flush toilets and push taps. The introduction of automated meter readers has also helped identify and address leaks from the water supply system.
Electric bus investment
We are continuing to invest in cleaner, zero-emission vehicles as we target a fully zero-emission UK bus fleet by 2035 and deliver cleaner air for our communities. By 2022, we expect to have 200 e-buses in our fleet. We are proud to be working with Transport for West Midlands on the ground-breaking project to make Coventry the country’s first all-electric Bus City. Through this initiative, every bus in Coventry is planned to be electric powered by 2025, leading to improved air quality and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Already our fleet of 32 electric double-decker buses in Manchester represents one of the single biggest investments in this technology in Europe. Introduced in March 2020, these e-buses are designed to reduce annual nitrous oxide (Nox) by the equivalent of 4.4 tonnes of carbon a year. We have also introduced Cambridge’s first electric buses in a joint initiative with the Greater Cambridge Partnership. The two buses are operating on the popular Citi 6 route between Cambridge, Girton and Oakington and only use around 2kWhr of electricity per mile, which is the same as running a conventional oven for an hour. During 2021, we will be introducing a further 46 new fully electric buses in our key Scottish transport networks in Aberdeen, Kilmarnock and Perth. Delivered through the Scottish Ultra-Low Emission Bus Scheme, this will help to improve air quality and advance Scotland’s ambition for a net zero economy.
Reducing waste through digital technology
Digitisation of internal processes is helping reduce our consumption of natural resources, particularly paper. Instead of relying on paper documents we are able to use digital copies to provide information. With around 24,000 employees based all over the UK and many people paid on a weekly basis, the cost and impact of producing paper payslips has traditionally been significant. We have moved all of our employees onto electronic payslips, all easily accessible on our secure employee app, Blink. This has saved 1.2 million payslips having to be printed every year as well as 15,000 polythene mail bags. Like other companies, we are also making use of the benefits of digitalisation for meetings which are not necessary to be conducted face-to-face. For our customers, too, our on bus contactless technology means passengers can use electronic tickets stored on their mobile phone instead of requiring a printed ticket.
People
Building the country’s skills base
Stagecoach has been at the forefront of helping to build the country’s skills base, championing apprentices in our workforce, and helping young people kick-start their careers. We have 800 apprentices across our companies in England, Scotland and Wales. As well as ensuring that our workforce represents the communities we serve, apprenticeships provide opportunities for internal development and succession planning. We were the first to introduce new bus driver apprenticeships in England. Our apprenticeship scheme offers opportunities across a range of different roles such as engineering, driving and non-technical roles, and also covers new technology to ensure we have the right people trained to deal with the fleets of the future.
Our “Trade Up” scheme is helping people to pursue new opportunities internally and our target is for a minimum of 5% of our workforce enrolled on formalised apprenticeship programmes within five years. Stagecoach has also been supporting the Scottish Government’s Developing the Young Workforce (DYW) initiative, which is designed to better prepare young people for the world of work. As well as providing apprenticeships, Stagecoach has been involved with DYW regional groups set up to connect employers with education, as well as providing mentors, work experience opportunities and career insight sessions.
Discounted travel
Independent research by transport consultants has consistently found that Stagecoach offers the lowest average weekly bus fares of Britain’s four main national operators, including lower weekly bus travel than in London where fares are subsidised. But we continue to look for ways to improve the affordability and accessibility of our services, particularly for more socially excluded groups. Stagecoach is proud to offer the UK’s first and only national discounted travel scheme for jobseekers to help them get back on board and back into work. Jobseekers with a Jobcentre Plus travel card can get half price single and return tickets, helping them get to interviews and take an important step into employment. We also provide discounts of 10% on standard fares to all NHS Scotland employees. Working with NHS Staff Benefits, the initiative uses Stagecoach’s corporate ticketing app and the NHS Staff Benefits portal to give workers access to even better value travel. As well as working with local authority partners to deliver concessionary travel for senior citizens and other groups and providing our own discounts for young people, we have also supported other schemes. In Greater Manchester, we have supported the Mayor’s Our Pass pilot. For a one-off administration fee, Our Pass provides free travel on local buses across Greater Manchester, as well as other benefits.
Innovation
More efficient transport networks
Our new Stagecoach Solutions service offers a range of specialist transport options including business bus services to help businesses get their employees to work, corporate ticketing, on-demand solutions, education bus services, rail replacement services and special event services to help connect people to festivals and sporting occasions. We have also made a major investment in new technology that will help plan the bus networks of the future to match the changes in how people travel coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Optibus software platform uses a combination of state-of-the-art artificial intelligence, advanced algorithms and cloud computing to deliver smarter timetables and networks and keep up with the continually evolving demand for travel. It will help deliver the most efficient timetables and rosters that offer customers both attractive frequencies and reliability and help keep fares low.
Efficient connectivity is vital to ensure people in our local communities have access to jobs, the services they need and can play a full part in society. We have taken a leading role in the development of demand responsive transport services, helping to serve people in rural areas or those employed in specialist sectors. We launched the UK’s first dedicated app based demand responsive bus service for NHS workers in partnership with Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and our technology partner, ViaVan. It aims to encourage modal shift from single-use car journeys and reduce pressure on car parking space. NHS staff can book journeys to and from work via the app on the demand responsive shuttles. These quick and efficient shared trips run early in the morning and late into the evening hours and users can track the location of their bus, change or cancel a booking or pre-book to match their upcoming shift schedules. Around 400 employees regularly use the Stagecoach Connect shuttle each week and staff consistently rate the service highly. Working with the Tees Valley Mayor, we have introduced Tees Flex, an on-demand bus service for residents in more isolated communities across the Tees Valley. Passengers can pre-book the bus via a smartphone app, a website or over the telephone.
Inclusion
Promoting health, well‑being and inclusion
Stagecoach was the first national bus operator to sign the “Time to Change” pledge and vow to tackle workplace stigma around mental health. We have set up a network of mental health and wellbeing champions across the county as part of a commitment to deliver a comprehensive plan to encourage our people to talk more openly about these important issues. We also understand that social isolation and loneliness can have significant health and wellbeing impacts in the community. To help address this issue we partnered with friendship charity Re-engage and the People’s Friend magazine to run a special bus in parts of the UK to send a message of friendship to those shielding or feeling lonely due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Decorated with hundreds of hand-made bunting triangles which had been sent in by the nation’s knitters, the bus visited Torquay, Barnsley, Cumbria and Dundee to deliver a colourful pick-me-up to people in care homes and residential streets. It also helped raise funds for Re-engage’s telephone befriending service.
More accessible journeys for everyone
As the UK’s biggest bus, coach and tram operator, we want the experience of using our services to be as easy as possible for all customers, including people with hidden and physical disabilities. In addition to investing in new, modern buses and coaches, we’re also using smarter technology to provide easier journeys and working closely with users who represent a wide variety of disability groups. All of our local bus fleets in the UK are fully accessible as a result of significant investment over many years. Our new vehicles feature CCTV and USB charging points, and “talking bus” audio visual systems are fitted as standard, providing next-stop information. This is designed to improve accessibility for blind and partially sighted people. Stagecoach has signed a charter with sight loss charity RNIB that commits to meeting the needs of passengers with a visual impairment. We have also worked with partners – including Guide Dogs – on “Swap with Me” initiatives to raise awareness among our employees of potential barriers to travel among excluded groups. Automatic vehicle location technology is fully deployed across our UK regional bus fleet, providing real time service information to customers via our smartphone app and online. In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, we have enhanced our Stagecoach bus app with the launch of a “busy bus” indicator to help customers plan their journeys with confidence. The feature uses extensive data and artificial intelligence to provide a traffic light indicator to help customers choose quieter services and maintain social distancing.
