Stagecoach East Scotland are finalists at the Scottish Transport Awards with a further 5 Stagecoach entries from across the country also short-listed.
The company's operations across Fife, Dundee, Angus and Perthshire have been short-listed for the prestigious Public Transport Operator of the Year award once again and the JET747 service has been short-listed for the Best Bus Service category.
Stagecoach East Scotland operate local bus and coach services across Fife, Perthshire, Dundee and Angus and into Edinburgh, Glasgow, Stirling and Aberdeen. The company employs over 1290 employees from 9 depots across the region and operate around 24 million miles per year using over 470 buses and coaches.
Stagecoach carry around 35 million passengers across the East of Scotland each year and have seen an increase of over 3% on Express City Connect routes in particular over the last year. The company has been recognised for the constant investment, monitoring, route development and extensive marketing campaigns which have taken place over the last year.
The nomination for the Operator of the Year award considers a number of performance indicators including health and safety, employee relations, customer satisfaction and service development.
The popular JET747 stops at Halbeath park and ride, Inverkeithing rail station and Ferrytoll park and ride en route to Edinburgh Airport and carries around 7000 passengers per week. In recent years the service has seen a number of improvements, including a timetable extension to provide buses 24 hours a day, a frequency increase to provide journeys up to every 20 minutes on Mondays to Saturdays and brand new vehicles launched in late 2017.
Stagecoach invested £1m into 6 new buses in November 2017 to provide more seats and even more luggage space following customer feedback. The buses were branded in the recognisable 'JET747' livery to be easily spotted on the road and were on the road in plenty time for journeys to/from Edinburgh Airport during the busy festive period.
Paul Thomas, Managing Director, Stagecoach East Scotland said: "Our employees are committed to delivering quality services across the region and our position in the shortlist for the Operator of the Year Award is a testament to their hard work all year round, from all parts of the business. In particular I'm extremely proud of the efforts of our employees during the recent severe weather conditions, in keeping people moving where it was possible and safe to do so, and for keeping our customers informed.
"Our JET747 has been popular since it's launch in 2006 and we continue to look at ways to improve the service, most recently by introducing 6 new vehicles with improved luggage space, which was needed to match the growing demand for the service to Scotland's busiest airport.
Stagecoach nationally is in the running for 7 awards overall at the 2018 Scottish Transport Awards. Winners are due to be announced at a ceremony in Glasgow in June, the awards are hosted by Transport Times Events.
For more information about Stagecoach bus services visit www.stagecoachbus.com and for the full award short-list visit https://www.transporttimes.co.uk/Admin/uploads/stas-2018-shortlist.pdf
Stagecoach East Scotland
Stagecoach UK Bus is part of the Stagecoach Group and is one of the largest bus operators in the UK, operating express and local bus services across the country.
