Stagecoach East Scotland celebrates UK Coach Awards success

Stagecoach East Scotland came out on top at the 2019 UK Coach Awards as the company scooped three gold awards and one silver award.

The company’s Express City Connect Network, which operates across Fife and into Edinburgh, Perth, Dundee, Aberdeen and Glasgow, was awarded top prize in the Top Express Operation category. Facilities such as leather seats, on board toilets, power sockets, air conditioning and free wifi have helped make the services an attractive alternative to the car, achieving increased passenger numbers.

Stagecoach East Scotland’s approach to low floor coaches also won gold in the Making Coaches a Better Choice Award and gold in the Innovation Award, along with bus manufacturer Alexander Dennis Ltd, following a £5.2 million investment in 19 new coaches for its Express network which were designed in partnership with ADL and Bus Users Scotland to provide the best possible journey experience for customers with mobility issues. The ground-breaking design has a flat floor saloon area covering the front half of the vehicle with a large wheelchair space as well as at-seat lights and 'stop' buttons. The new vehicles have received positive feedback from customers and passenger numbers have risen on the routes they operate on.

The company also picked up the silver award in the Marketing Excellence category for continued efforts in promoting the Express City Connect network.

In addition, Stagecoach North Scotland, Scottish Citylink and Rennies Coaches were also big winners on the night. North Scotland’s Ward Barnes – who covers the company’s Moray operations - won the gold award in the Engineer of the Year category, Scottish Citylink won gold in the Customer Service and Support Staff award, silver in the Top Express Operation category and bronze in the Marketing Excellence category, while Rennies Coaches driver Scott Seath won the bronze award in the Top UK Coach Driver category.

Douglas Robertson, Managing Director, Stagecoach East Scotland said: “Coaches are an essential part of UK life and provide a good value, reliable and high quality link to help connect people across the country with their friends, family, work and leisure activities.

“It’s fantastic that our coach operations have been recognised at these awards and is a real credit to the hard work that our employees do to ensure we deliver the kind of services that our customers want.

“I’d like to congratulate all of our winners and finalists and we look forward to making even more improvements to further drive up the standard of coach travel for our customers in the future.”