Stagecoach Manchester

[Mayneway]

RE: Stagecoach Manchester

(13/05/2014 12:19)126th street Wrote:  Struggling to understand what your grievance is there. Whether bus enthusiasts like it or not, it is often better for the passenger for most services to be in the hands of one operator as they can benefit from daily, weekly and longer duration tickets across a wider network.

It's not like Stagecoach have form for jacking the fares up to the levels seen in some parts of the south of the country - they have just been recognised as the cheapest of the big groups, and by some margin.

If Bullocks and Mayne had been bought by first what would have happened? Half a job done as is the First way, with a lack of attention to detail and high fares. Not much good if you're a passenger.

Not just as an enthusiast but as a daily user of Stagecoach Manchester services I don't have a problem with them infact I would rather use them than First.

However just to clarify on the Mayne's issue. I lived on a busy east Manchester corridor which was served my both Maynes and Stagecoach. Now I had followed Maynes for many years sunce being a young child and understood their wish to leave the bus market, not through pressure from Stagecoach or any other operator but mainly over fears the Metrolink would have on thier business.
It would be wrong to say that fares and services improved once Stagecoach took over, some would say the increase was very noticeable at the time and thier was a big overhaul in the former Maynes services that at the time didn't appeal to everyone.

Now I was told at the time of the takeover that the takeover of Maynes was a two horse race between Stagecoach and Transdev. Now yes to a degree it's speculation and we'll never know, but would passengers in east Manchester be better off now if thier was another larger operator like transdev operating in the area?? I personally think so.

The one thing I don't like about Stagecoach is thier competitive pricing. I use services generally around Ashton and pay what I call premium prices to travel. Yet in Middleton and along Wilmslow Road, where there's competition, fares and indeed daily and weekly tickets are a lot less than what I'm paying. Proof in my book that competition is vital to keep prices low.

If you look back to the 90's. On most of the major corridors there was compition and passengers had the choice between 2/3/4 or sometimes even 5 operators. Yes it looked like chaos but us passengers got a good deal. The 192 is a perfect example. Years ago there were many operators battling it out on that corridor, today just Stagecoach. There's no choice for passengers anymore. If they want to travel between A and B by bus nine times out of ten their forced to use one operator. Admittedly standards are a lot higher than they were but are anything but perfect!