stagecoach buses

[©Amethyst]

£25.00 for a 210 mile trip.

And you think this is expensive?

I don't know if you've noticed, but money for buses, drivers, fuel and overheads (not to mention a little thing called profit) all have to come from somewhere. It's not State owned......

It might not be state owned as you put it but it is certainly heavily subsidised by the council.

I recall seeing a message here about Stagecoach being a sham since they came to Caithness. Trust me, friends... they were a sham long before!

[Alan16]

here is my letter and heres the papers version of my letter

I and another person was waiting for the 81 14.38pm service bus going to wick via Mount Pleasant/Towerhill Road at 14.40 i called up the stagecoach bus station to say the bus did not turn up and was told the bus was Rescheduled to 14.20pm and not at 14.40 as it says in the timetables book. so me and the other person had to get a taxi to Mount Pleasant road/Bower. I think stagecoach should up date their time tables and stagecoach are a shambles since they came to Caithness

Recently i was waiting along with another person for the 81 at 14.38pm service bus going to Wick via Mount Pleasant/Towerhill Road in Thurso At 14.40 I called the station to say the bus had not turned up and was told it was at 14.20pm stagecoach should update their timetables

In fairness to the newspaper (Courier I assume) your version did ramble a little - the fact that you got a taxi really isn't important to the story for example. The newspapers version is more succinct and has been grammar checked, and as somebody said, you are warned that it could be edited.

I'm not really sure if you were asking for our opinions on what the newspaper had done to your letter or on the issues in the letter. Therefore, so that I include both I give you the following comment: Stagecoach? BOOOOOOOOO!

[©Amethyst]

Stagecoach? BOOOOOOOOO!

Well said!!

[vanman]

£25.00 for a 210 mile trip.

And you think this is expensive?

I don't know if you've noticed, but money for buses, drivers, fuel and overheads (not to mention a little thing called profit) all have to come from somewhere. It's not State owned......

yes I do think its expensive! at least scotrail offer us a highland railcard which gives us a good discount making it around £9 return to Inverness
What do stagecoach offer us nothing! £26 return or £17.50 for a single & if your a student they give you a discount of a 1/3rd off but only on a single ticket not on a return! so your only saving £2!
yes I understand they have overheads etc but does it really warrant a cost of £1300 if a full bus was to make a return journey?! I think not.
& they have the same overheads all over the country so how can they charge £1 for some journeys of the same length further down the country.

[joxville]

yes I do think its expensive! at least scotrail offer us a highland railcard which gives us a good discount making it around £9 return to Inverness
What do stagecoach offer us nothing! £26 return or £17.50 for a single & if your a student they give you a discount of a 1/3rd off but only on a single ticket not on a return! so your only saving £2!
yes I understand they have overheads etc but does it really warrant a cost of £1300 if a full bus was to make a return journey?! I think not.
& they have the same overheads all over the country so how can they charge £1 for some journeys of the same length further down the country.

I suspect remote areas, which although sometimes subsidised, are actually penalised for their location and in actual fact they are subsidising the rest of the country. I see buses every day here, on the A4 & M4 with very few passengers so how can it be a viable service?

[northener]

Regarding £1 fares, I think you'll find that these are loss leaders on very busy routes to get people to use their services as opposed to the competition. I somehow do not think that these fares will be available to everyone on every coach......

£1300 for a return journey. Theoretically possible, but how many times is the bus full?

Certainly, when the evening bus pulls into Wick there are only a few people on board, and the bus hasn't dropped anyone off in Thurso yet, so your point about full bus loads isn't really valid apart from a description of what is theoretically possible.

Just for comparison. I decided to have a look at a National Express coach journey from Birmingham to London return - a journey of around 100 miles each way.
The price was around £18.00 with coaches leaving nearly every
hour. Leeds to Birmingham - 115 miles and around £20.00, again with lots of coaches leaving.

So, even between cities with a potential customer base of millions and the volume of customers to enable them to run coaches nearly every hour, you're still going to pay prices not far off what we are paying for a service in a remote area that does not have the sufficient number of potential customers to make the service really viable.

As I said earlier, we're not really getting a bad deal.......

[embow]

Fact: Caithness is better served by buses now than it has ever been.
As for costs, I have seen my own fares for the week go from nearly £27 pre-Stagecoach (5 days travel) to the current £20 which gives me unlimited travel 7 days a week in the county and to as far as Helmsdale. You can get a monthly deal slightly cheaper than this if you buy online. A big difference in every way.
Admittedly the fares to Inverness might seem a lot but in the current state of financial affairs they are not excessive in any way.
And yes there have been one or two issues of timetabling but generally this has been looked at. Some still need a tweak to bring a better service.
In general then, Stagecoach in Caithness? Bring them on any day as far as I'm concerned.

[vanman]

Just for comparison. I decided to have a look at a National Express coach journey from Birmingham to London return - a journey of around 100 miles each way.
The price was around £18.00 with coaches leaving nearly every
hour. Leeds to Birmingham - 115 miles and around £20.00, again with lots of coaches leaving.

The difference is that if you go onto the National Express website you can actually get the journeys you refer to for £9 return with their special funfare deals.Stagecoach offer us no discounts for lengthy journeys up here.

[purplelady]

if you go online and book think it is 48 hrs in advance you can get a day return fom wick to ness for just over £15 it is an apex return well worth doing am not sure if the travel agents do them worth asking x

[©Amethyst]

Fact: Caithness is better served by buses now than it has ever been.
As for costs, I have seen my own fares for the week go from nearly £27 pre-Stagecoach (5 days travel) to the current £20 which gives me unlimited travel 7 days a week in the county and to as far as Helmsdale. You can get a monthly deal slightly cheaper than this if you buy online. A big difference in every way.
Admittedly the fares to Inverness might seem a lot but in the current state of financial affairs they are not excessive in any way.
And yes there have been one or two issues of timetabling but generally this has been looked at. Some still need a tweak to bring a better service.
In general then, Stagecoach in Caithness? Bring them on any day as far as I'm concerned.

It's good that the changes within the bus companies over the past year or two have helped you with fare costs.

Although your closing statement... I don't think that you would still be saying that if you knew the ins and outs of 'Stagecoach Politics'. Even I don't know it fully, but the little that I do know makes me think Stagecoach should crawl under a rock and not return.

The way they treat their staff (maybe not so much at the Thurso depot but certainly in Inverness) is atrocious. Infact, the way they treat families of staff are just as atrocious

I wish you all could know just what a terrible lot of people run the company in the Highlands.

[joxville]

It's good that the changes within the bus companies over the past year or two have helped you with fare costs.

Although your closing statement... I don't think that you would still be saying that if you knew the ins and outs of 'Stagecoach Politics'. Even I don't know it fully, but the little that I do know makes me think Stagecoach should crawl under a rock and not return.

The way they treat their staff (maybe not so much at the Thurso depot but certainly in Inverness) is atrocious. Infact, the way they treat families of staff are just as atrocious

I wish you all could know just what a terrible lot of people run the company in the Highlands.

Their business ethics are questionable too.

[©Amethyst]

Their business ethics are questionable too.

Shall we agree that the whole company is questionable?

[Mrs Bucket]

When I have been on the busses to and fro from here to inverness they stop off in Dingwall and they will let you use the toilets there

When did the buses start going by Dingwall

[jim baxter]

Why not try a Highland railcard it costs 7.50 and then it's only 10.20 for a return, ok it takes a bit longer than the bus at least you get toilets and not stuck in you seat for the journey to inverness

[purplelady]

When did the buses start going by Dingwall

have to say i was thinking that never been on a bus that goes to dingwall x

[dietcokegirl]

have to say i was thinking that never been on a bus that goes to dingwall x

I assumed she meant dornoch - well that's where the toilet stop was the day i was on it anyways.

[©Amethyst]

You most certainly wouldn't want a toilet stop at that place in Dingwall!

Oh my... someone heard that I wasn't a Celtic fan in there one day while I was outside talking to a friend - I near got ran out the county!

[Twilight]

The only thing i see wrong with them is that the people going to college such like myself get the little crap bus when it shuld be a standard size bus or a big 1 whatever u want to call it but we cant all fit on it we sometimes have to stand which isn't very safe when theres so much prople feeling knackered after college nd all the other memebrs of public having to share with us

[ShelleyCowie]

I hate buses!

When i was pregnant and me, my OH and his 2 sons, my OH's mum and sister went to skye, on the way down we had to sit on a bus with no seat belts. It was hard for us to ensure the kids didnt fly forward at the same time protecting ourselves when the driver slammed on his brakes several times. Also no toilets (thats from thurso to inverness and inverness to Struan in skye)

Even worse on the way back we were told by the driver there was no seats even though ours was booked in advance. Me being 6 months pregnant and on crutches not 1 single person offered me a seat, the kids also had to stand all the way to inverness from skye! We all did! When we complained after we never got an apology. Rediculous!

I know that nobody has to offer anybody a seat but where is the common courtesy to even offer!???

To end it all.......I Hate buses!

[©Amethyst]

the kids also had to stand all the way to inverness from skye!

When was this?

By the way, I live just a 30 minute coach journey from Inverness, if it's a coach, no one is allowed to stand by law. At least that is my understanding of it.

Different on a low-floor, which they've started using for the busy rush-hour runs now.

Not sure if the low-floor busses are legal to carry standing passengers on roads up to 60 MPH though. Would have to check with known Stagecoach employee.

Sadly, complaints with Stagecoach rarely get listened to. I only had my complaint listened to one day because said employee's manager thought my chest was talking to him