megabus.com is the UK’s pioneering low cost inter-city coach service, offering express transport to more than 40 major locations across the UK with fares starting from just £1. The service is based on the same yield management approach as the budget airlines, with lower fares the earlier customers book. The key to the success of megabus.com is a simple yet effective secure e-commerce website where customers can search for the best deals, access timetable and travel information, and book seats. Customers can book seats up to six weeks before travel or as soon as one hour before departure. The ticketless service sends a booking reference to passengers via email or SMS text message. A telephone hotline booking facility complements online sales and provides further access to the product for those without a PC or internet facility. Launched in August 2003, extensive marketing of the product has developed a strong customer base among young people, students and the over-55s and now around 2 million passengers a year travel with megabus.com. Stagecoach has invested heavily in new state-of-the-art 93-seat double-decker coaches, which can also be equipped with dedicated luggage trailers.

Stagecoach operates an innovative budget train service, megatrain.com, in the south-west of England, providing passengers with the best value fares on the UK rail network for decades. The service, which follows the huge success of the company’s market-leading low-cost inter-city coach service megabus.com, offers seats from £1 on a number of off-peak services on the South West Trains network, the UK’s biggest rail franchise. megatrain.com is being piloted on the Portsmouth-London and Southampton-London routes. More than 3000 seats a week will be available through the megatrain.com website on a number of off-peak services Monday to Saturday. Passengers enjoy travel in a designated area of the train, with many services provided by brand new state-of-the-art Desiros - some of the most modern, comfortable and well-equipped trains on the UK rail network. The service was launched in November 2005 and it is hoped the 34-week pilot study will help lead to a change in the existing ticketing legislation to allow train operators to offer more flexible pricing for customers.

Kickstart is a three-year pump-priming initiative to develop new and existing bus services with the potential for growth as part of a partnership between bus operators and local authorities. Public funding helps the route in the early years when passenger numbers are not high enough to make the service commercially sustainable. By the end of the three-year period, services can run without the need for ongoing support from the taxpayer. Stagecoach piloted the concept in New Zealand and in Perth, Scotland, before lobbying the Government in autumn 2002 to set up a dedicated fund to help develop bus services in the UK. The trials involved investment in new low-floor vehicles, improved bus frequencies, more simplified fares and a free travel incentive to encourage car users to switch to the bus. At the same time, the local authority introduced bus priority measures and improved infrastructure. The Kickstart concept has now been adopted by the Department for Transport, the Scottish Executive and the devolved administration in Wales. Stagecoach has been very successful in securing funding allocations for its partnership projects with high levels of passenger volume growth achieved in many areas of England, Scotland and Wales.

Stagecoach was the first bus operator to develop a sophisticated transport marketing campaign as part of a drive to get more people to travel by bus. The campaign uses detailed customer research techniques pioneered by the supermarket giants to encourage people to get out of their cars and onto public transport. Stagecoach, one of the country’s biggest transport operators, is targeting up to 20% of its bus networks using the innovative approach, with a major focus on mums and commuters. Detailed geodemographic research, similar to that used by the retail sector, is being undertaken by Stagecoach to focus on people whose lifestyle is most suited to switching to bus travel. A specialist telemarketing unit was set up at the company’s headquarters in Perth in 2004, concentrating on a new town or city every six weeks. The team discusses prospective passengers’ current travel choices, their satisfaction with existing bus services and offers seven days’ free travel to encourage them to try the bus. The campaign has seen up to 25% of customers who take up the free travel offer switch to the bus.

Stagecoach has made a significant contribution to the restructuring of the UK’s rail system in recent years and the company’s ground-breaking proposals have helped to deliver greater integration on the network. In 2001, Stagecoach produced a policy paper called Platform for Change, which called for the restoration of the link between train and track, with rail operations and track responsibility brought together in one vertically integrated operation. The paper suggested setting up a series of integrated control centres, jointly operated by the train company and the track infrastructure operator Network rail, to improve the industry’s response to network disruption. Stagecoach also suggested bringing track maintenance in-house at Network rail and moving away from a sub-contracting system. These measures, designed to align the interests of safety, customers and shareholders, have largely been adopted by the Government. Stagecoach opened the UK’s first integrated control centre at London Waterloo, operated jointly by South West Trains and Network Rail, in 2004. The initiative has improved the joint response to incidents and ensured delays and disruption to passengers are minimised.

Stagecoach has been working with Siemens Transportation Systems to develop the UK’s first optical guidance bus system for the UK. The self-steering buses use an on-board camera system, which follows sets of specially-painted white lines on the road. The system is extremely accurate, making best use of limited road space, allowing level access boarding for passengers and delivering faster journey times. A driver is in charge of the vehicle and can take control of the bus at all times to ensure safety is maintained. Siemens has used the technology successfully on tram-based vehicles in Europe, such as in Rouen in France, and it is planned to trial the technology in a heritage city in the UK – possibly Cambridge - using high-quality conventional double decker buses. Stagecoach is also considering the use of the technology on an innovative double-decker articulated vehicle as part of a package of pro-bus measures designed for Manchester. Optical guidance, as part of a comprehensive package of pro-public transport measures, has huge potential to help tackle the increasing road congestion that is affecting many parts of the UK and attract more people to public transport.

Stagecoach has developed a cost-effective demand responsive service, Yellow Taxibus, to help boost social inclusion and cut congestion across the UK. A two-year experiment in Fife, Scotland, demonstrated that “phone and go” Yellow Taxibus services can be delivered at significantly lower cost to the taxpayer than existing publicly-funded schemes. Yellow Taxibus was launched in August, 2003, as a high-frequency demand responsive operation, running seven days a week, combining a fixed bus route with flexible pre-booked taxi pick-ups. The concept, which used upmarket people carriers, was extremely popular with customers, particularly women, and offers local authorities a value-for-money option to improve transport links in rural and urban areas. Ticket prices were set at a premium to the equivalent bus journey, but offered a competitive option compared to car and parking costs, and rail fares. Yellow Taxibus established a core commuter and leisure market. While the initiative did not achieve commercial viability, it demonstrated the potential of such services to widen travel options, boost social inclusion and create a new passenger base, particularly among former car users, with modest public funding support. Significantly, the operating costs of Yellow Taxibus, which uses a manual booking system rather than a more expensive computer-based system, are relatively low at 80p per mile. The operating costs of many other equivalent DRT services, which tend to require a high per-passenger public subsidy, are twice as much or more.

Stagecoach has showcased a futuristic hybrid electric bus across the UK to encourage local authorities to introduce the environmentally-friendly vehicle in their areas. The state-of-the-art vehicle, which was successfully operated by Stagecoach in its former operations in Auckland, New Zealand, has the advantage of being able to run emission-free in densely populated areas and the battery-powered technology means it is extremely quiet on the road. Special regenerative braking technology means the batteries on the bus are charged when the brakes are applied, while a diesel turbine can also charge the batteries. Stagecoach won a local authority contract to run the vehicles on a new route on the Quayside in Newcastle and the service is now in operation.

A next-generation fuel additive is being used by Stagecoach across its 8,000-vehicle UK bus fleet, delivering improved fuel consumption and lower vehicle emissions. Stagecoach signed an agreement in 2003 with Cerulean International Ltd, the Oxford-based subsidiary of the nanomaterials company Oxonica Ltd, to trial the product in up to 1,000 vehicles. The Perth-based international transport group carried out tests of the product, Envirox™, in the north west of England and London, whichdelivered more than a 5% cut in fuel consumption and an associated decrease in vehicle emissions. Nanotechnology research is a key technology of the 21st century and is used to design and build materials at the atomic scale. Scientists work in nanometres, each of which is 1/80000th of the diameter of a human hair. The fuel additive is based on a well-known oxidation catalyst widely used in catalytic converters. The material has been re-engineered using Oxonica’s nanotechnology expertise to allow it to be delivered as a fuel-borne catalyst, leading to a cleaner burn within the combustion chamber, resulting in improved fuel efficiency and lower emissions. No engine modifications are required to use the product, it has no impact on lubricant performance and the optimum dose rates are low.