Statement from Stagecoach - Bus Service

08/01/2020: 18:30pm - We have received the following statement from Stagecoach with regard to the changes made to the bus services to Winterbourne Academy this week:

By way of background, the fare collection system used by South Gloucestershire Bus & Coach prior to our acquisition of their services was vastly outdated and in no way secure or appropriate for the modern day.  Single fares were often issued without ticket or receipt, whilst multi-journey tickets were issued on paper and hand-stamped by way of validation.  As there were no ticket machines, there was no accurate measure of passenger numbers, revenue receipts etc and only cash/cheques could be used an payment.  This was all an issue not only for the business but also customers left unable to prove payment for travel.

We have been working hard to find newer vehicles and additional ticket machines to bring all ex SGB&C services up to standard as quickly as possible.  This came together during the last week of Autumn Term, giving us time to issue printed notices to all students using the bus on the last couple of days.  This note referred back to a detailed explanation of the changes on our website.  I can only apologise that this all took place with less notice than we'd ideally like, however we are running with a period of grace to allow old tickets/systems to cease before full transfer to the new products.

Going forward we'll continue to sell single fares on all services, return tickets on those services that had them already, and our Bristol & South Glos Megarider (seven day) unlimited travel ticket across the board.  Single/return tickets are available from the driver by cash or Contactless card, whilst the weekly ticket can be bought on the bus as a Smartcard or at a discounted price via our mobile app.  We don't sell paper multi-journey tickets anywhere on our network and have no current plan to create a new product for our school services.

The vast majority of fares have been left at the original level - with one exception where, in error, Service 963 saw a price amendment.  963 will be reinstated at the old prices from tomorrow morning.  This service also ran using a single decker bus yesterday, but larger buses are now on the schedule from today and going forward.

We understand there has been much confusion caused by the change and can only apologise for our poor communication.

West Enquiries mailbox - west.enquiries@stagecoachbus.com

FARE STRUCTURE WITH EFFECT FROM 05/01/2020

We have now been informed of the new fare structure from 5^th January 2020 for the school bus service operated by Stagecoach:

For routes 427, 458, 459 and 460 :

• Student single journeys on the above services cost £2.
• There are no return tickets available. For regular customers, the Stagecoach Bristol & South Glos 1 week Megarider costs £17 from the Stagecoach Bus App or £19  from the driver on the bus.
• There are no longer 10-journey tickets, but students can continue to use any existing tickets until expiry.

So it appears that that the 460 fare has increased from £1.50 to £2 but that all other fares have remained the same.

For route 963 the fares are as before:

Here is the link to the Stagecoach website about fares and details of the App:

https://www.stagecoachbus.com/promos-and-offers/west/bristol-tickets