Stagecoach/Provincial

For my first Ciao op you would think that I would discuss something more engaging wouldn't you? However, this company has been responsible for ferrying my good self to School / 6th form College for several years. As such there is a sense of need on my part to pass judgement on a company that has proved mildly useful. 'Mildly useful'? Surely a service that has helped me in my pursuit of educational enlightenment, is worth more than such faint praise? ...
...this company. It has caused more problems than it has solved to the residents of Gloucester in some way or another. A year ago, the school bus I used was withdrawn due to what was cited as "A lack of revenue generation" (Despite the bus being more packed than a Weetabix Minibix advert). For the first time ever I would have to use the regular buses. Once I did, it occured to me why car ownership is so wide-spread. The services Stagecoach provide ...

Garret 19.10.2001 · Read full review
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Review of Stagecoach/Provincial

This review covers two aspects of stagecoach service in South Wales. Firstly the local service in Merthyr Tydfil. I use this service occasionally for short trips from my house to Merthyr town centre and back using services 80 or 81. As a rule I find these services to be prompt and quick, although it is a short distance to cover. The drivers are usually plesent and thatnks to a recent upgrade in the buses, the vehicles are usually in good condition ...
...stagecoach is my daily commute to/from work in Cardiff, a distance of around 23 miles each way. The service for this route is the X4 which runs every 15 mins between the two locations between 6:55 and 6:05 each day. Then hourly after that. Typically for the journey in to work I catch the 6:55 at it's third stop, Hoover Main gate, by this time there are already few seats left (as the bus has previously came from further up the valley before merthyr) ...

BadDay 08.11.2007 · Read full review
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Review of Stagecoach/Provincial

You think that at last you have escaped the UK and that you will be able to relax and forget your troubles which can be left behind in Britain. But if you want to escape British commercialism and all of its large companies, you’re in for a letdown. For the recommendation is that you catch the bus from the airport to the hotel/town/lodging… and you hope to have been set free from Elizabeth II’s land. Think again. For the bus you ...
...board is a Stagecoach one. Yes, continuing my mad tour of NZ, today we look at the buses operated around the place, the company? Stagecoach New Zealand. The cities? Wellington and Auckland, the largest cities in the country. In today’s relatively brief op we explore the world of NZ buses. A Background… Stagecoach have literally hundreds, perhaps thousands of vehicles in New Zealand offering services which span the country. It is not ...

danieletheridge 30.03.2002 · Read full review
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Review of Stagecoach/Provincial

My experience of first provincial is not good. Living in Portsmouth, there are two bus companies, First and Stagecoach, neither are excellent, though each have their own merits and advantages. The vehicles These can vary from journey to journey, you could have a brand new omnicity (new last december) or a relatively new volvo (w or s reg) or a vehicle around this era. Also you could get a surprise, a very old, noisy, dirty, rarely cleaned minibus ...
...problem with this (being a bit of a lover of nostalgia), its the price that im paying for this that I do have a problem with! The price The price of the journey, in my opinion, is poor value for money. It costs me £1.15 to go from my home (North End) to Commercial Road (about a mile and a half away). This may sound reasonable, but when compared with Stagecoach which charges arond £1 for the same journey, using very similar vehicles, you start to ...

Taylor28 22.04.2005 · Read full review
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Review of Stagecoach/Provincial

I rely on public transport to get me about most of the time. Sometimes I am lucky enough to get a lift with my housemate Frank but most of the time it is either Shank’s Pony or the No 50 bus kindly provided by Mr. Souter of stagecoach. So are Stagecoach Manchester any good or am I left champing at the bit as I wait for hours on hours for a non-existent bus as it has been cancelled. Who Are Stagecoach? Stagecoach is a multinational company founded ...
...main way of building up their multinational empire was to buy bus companies, deliver ridiculously cheap fares that would drive off all competition. This happened in my own hometown of Dumfries. Once there was Western Scottish PLC that my dad drove for but it was acquired by Stagecoach and firms such as Dicksonss buses folded and my daddy got a new boss as well as a new uniform and a new coloured bus. This also happened in Africa, New Zealand and ...

duskmaiden 26.09.2003 · Read full review
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Review of Stagecoach/Provincial

Stagecoach! Pah! Like most areas the deregulation of bus services some years ago led to a multitude of different bus companies running services within the same area. Where I live (Surrey) we have as our main bus companies Arriva, Stagecoach, Green Line and Safeguard. Stagecoach sticks out like a sore thumb for poor (non-existent almost!) customer service aswell as being hideously overpriced. In my area there are a couple of long routes they run ...
...a nearby town about 8 miles away - about a 35 minute journey. I've lost count of the amount of times I've had problems with this so-called service. It supposedly runs every half hour until about 6.30pm when there is one bus about every hour or so until about 10pm. The return fare for the journey is £3.10 - very expensive compared to the other companies. I've been left stranded at the other end of my journey unable to return home on many occasions ...

blurbubble 15.03.2001 · Read full review
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Review of Stagecoach/Provincial

I'll be honest....I don't think Stagecoach is actually that bad. I know they've got one hell of a reputation, and yeah, some of it's true, but in my experience, they've never actually been monumentally awful. I mean, they get me from A to B, only occasionally detouring through point C whilst the driver's mind in somewhere at point D. Above all, I feel sorry for the lowly Stagecoach driver. It can't be easy, weighing 15 stone, or being a transvestite, ...
...with a moustache. Certainly, Stagecoach drivers appear to be a highly eclectic bunch, and admittedly, you can get some who are more downright surely than Basil Fawlty, but very rarely do I get the impression that they see passengers as freight which they misguidedly decided to transport years ago, and regret having taken that decision. They have a thankless job, given the nice, safe nature of our city, as regular readers of my stuff will note (recent ...

DeusXM 18.02.2002 · Read full review
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Review of Stagecoach/Provincial

Stagecoach is a controversial company. It has had its wrist well and truly slapped by various official Fair Trade organisations. The chairman and founder of the company has given millions of pounds to support an action group committed to keep homosexuality banned from sex education in Scottish schools. Stagecoach has Scottish roots. It was a well organised and smoothly greased company that was able to run efficiently, make a profit and grow large ...
...to expand by taking over smaller companies that were unlucky enough to get in its way. That might sound rather cruel but my old schooling in Economics has wired me to give the big thumbs up to any company that manages to so cunningly swim in the market. I say “swim” because the image that springs to mind is that of a shark. The Monopolies and Mergers Commission (Of which there is only one) started to watch Stagecoach’s activities after complaints ...

Manx 20.12.2000 · Read full review
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Review of Stagecoach/Provincial

I have been using Stagecoach buses for work for over 3 years now. At first they used to be reliable. The bus I used was the X43 to Manchester, I got off at Burnley Bus Station and had 15minutes left to get a coffee before work. I buy a weekly rover which costs £8.50, this gets me to work and back for 7 days if I wanted . I only use it for 5 days, but it's still good value. The journey used to take about 1 hour, I used to take a good book or chat ...
...the bus. When it got to the winter months, the bus didn't always turn up, or if it did it was 30 mins late . Many a time I have had to get a taxi home which costs about £15 to my house. My husband works shifts and can't always come and get me. Loads of times the bus has broken down. I don't start work until 9am and don't get home until 7.10pm, I actually finish work at 5.30. They have altered the bus times for me going home now. I remember ...

belinda9 19.04.2001 · Read full review
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Review of Stagecoach/Provincial

I'll be getting a reputation as a bus spotter - this is my second opinion on the subject, I can assure you this isn't the case! Stagecoach, owned by millionaire Brian Souter (who fronted the campaign to retain Section 28), is a large UK wide firm, running bus services both long and short distance. (And also trains in some regions). My experience of Stagecoach has been largly poor... The fleet of buses in my region (Lothian) is mixed - some buses ...
...fares are not the cheapest around but are not excessive either. A 15 mile trip is around £1.80. Special fares are available. One thing however which alarms me, is the activity of some of their drivers. Numerous times whilst on the X73 service between Edinburgh and Dumfries the driver has been using a mobile telephone. Without the hands free kit. This strikes me as what should be a dismissable offence. Not only is it dangerous... it's putting the ...

tw1314 03.04.2001 (02.05.2001) · Read full review
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Review of Stagecoach/Provincial

Haven't spotted a North West bit for Stagecoach, so hope you don't mind if I dump my opnion here. 1. Stagecoach are contraversial in Manchester. One of their services serving Ashton was suspended for a few weeks by our GMPTE for trying to make passengers go on the Stagecoach buses rather than the Dennis bus companies vehicles that were also on that route. 2. The 192 bus service which is a very popular route had another bus operator making the poor ...
...flooded the route with 192's lowered their weekly bus passes to the same price etc as UK Bus. It got that bad that there were that many 192's queuing up at Piccadilly Gardens that us other mortals couldn't see our own buses and they couldn't get in to the Road to pick us non 192 users up. This was reported as well in the Mcr Evening News, of course it was denied, but us bus users grumbled about it every day and aired our views to the inspectors. ...

Bevdav 26.01.2001 · Read full review
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Review of Stagecoach/Provincial

Recently, the bus and metro fares have nearly doubled. A few weeks ago, a childfare was 25p all the time but now it's gone up to 40p after 7pm, weekends and school holidays so you can only get the 25p fare when you're at school which is a waist of time. This is rediculous considering the fact that they are trying to get more people to use public transport. It used to cost an easy £1.00 to get to the metro centre but now it's a stupid amount of £1.60. ...
...less people are goin to use this so called service because of this. The company will probably lose money due to people not being able to afford the far too high bus fare. Another problem with this company is the timings. There has been many times that I have gone for the last bus of the night and it has been early so I couldn't get home. Also the times keep changing throughout the day which is annoying because you never know what time it's supposed ...

ibirkmyre 26.09.2000 · Read full review
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Review of Stagecoach/Provincial

My daughter was thirteen last May and has begun to worry that she might be turned off the school bus, operated by First Provincial, for not having enough bus fare. So I thought I should enquire about an "under 16 bus pass" to prove she was entitled to half fares. We had to get passport photograghs taken and take them to Fareham, Portsmouth or Gosport (the shortest journey being at least 15 minutes) with her birth certificate to collect the pass. ...
...to use this pass on Stagecoach buses too,(She only uses First Provincial to get to and from school). But, on enquiring with Stagecoach they say some of their drivers would not accept the provincial pass so she has to have a second pass saying exactly the same thing!. Don't you think the companies could get together and issue a pass that every bus/train company would recognise. What a waste of time, money - mine and theirs and paperwork! ...

Stella.Dave 19.08.2000 · Read full review
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Review of Stagecoach/Provincial

We live about ten miles outside Aberdeen & although I drive my wife doesn't, so her only means of public transport is Stagecoach buses. We are all encouraged to leave the car at home & use public transport, I only wish one of those worthless politicians who keeps reminding us about it came & witnessed Stagecoach bus services in our area. My wife has used it regularly for the past three years & these are some of her experiences. There was a shortage ...
...in some drivers from the North of England. In theory it was a good idea except Stagecoach didn't inform them where to go, more often than not, the drivers had to ask the passengers for directions & when the bus was empty it was left to the drivers to guess the routes. Then Stagecoach recruited a number of drivers from Malta who were probably keen to make the generous salaries (compared to Malta) Stagecoach offered. After some training they were ...

ScottishWestie 09.11.2007 · Read full review
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Review of Stagecoach/Provincial

I would just like to write a review on Stagecoach, whose services I actually used today for the first time in about 4 years! I decided to leave Plymouth for the day, and go up to Exeter for a different experience - or so I thought, but that is actually the subject of another review. In my own opinion, I personally feel that Stagecoach should actually in fact provide a coach for this service - as opposed to the double decker that I had the misfortune ...
...asleep on the way back!). When I last did this trip about 5 years ago, it was on an actual coach - and so, this could be what I am actually basing my thoughts on! But with that said, I cannot actually complain as to how I was treated though during the course of my journey in either direction - apart from the price! But then, for a £6.50 return this is all but the equivalent of a single - say no more, unless Devon is the same in terms of prices! Although ...

dynamicnurse 01.04.2009 (30.03.2009) · Read full review
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Review of Stagecoach/Provincial