Stagecoach managing director Tom Waterhouse has spoken exclusively to Cumbria Crack as the travel firm pledges to improve its services.
The company – which was recently handed a formal warning for failure to operate certain bus services without reasonable excuse – has also just announced a partnership with Cumberland Council to pump £2.5 million into bus services in the area in a bid to get them back running on time.
Cumbria Crack’s Lucy Edwards sat down with Tom and transport portfolio holder for Cumberland Council Denise Rollo and here’s what they had to say about what has been going on with Cumbria’s bus services.
What has happened to bus services? Why have buses not turned up or been late for so long?
Bus users first started noticing more regular disruption around two years ago through Stagecoach’s X page and live timetable app – where the firm shares live updates on services.
Problems regularly cited for buses not turning up or being late included ‘low vehicle availability’, ‘staff sickness’, ‘staff issues’ and ‘driver shortages.’
Despite dozens of complaints and questions being asked by bus users on social media – Stagecoach has not shared a full explanation addressing the problems and criticisms until now.
Tom said: “We absolutely acknowledge and understand the criticism and frustration, and we want to do everything we can to operate as reliable of a bus service as we can so that the customers who use it can rely on it.
“The last 18 to 24 months has presented us with an awful lot of challenges and they have been mostly around driver resource and the shortage of mechanics that has meant keeping on top of servicing vehicles has been more challenging.”
Tom explained that recruitment struggles and a change in working culture post-Covid are some of the main causes of the issues the firm has faced.
He added: “I think predominantly one of the things that Covid did was change the expectations and attitudes around work/life balance and in particular attitudes around what people want from employment in terms of that.
“The role of a bus driver includes evening work and weekend work; it is shift based because that is when people want to travel.
“A lot of people post-Covid for completely understandable reasons wanted to go back to less weekend working or changing their attitudes towards shift work, so I think that is one of the big drivers of why that has been a challenge.
“You also see that in other industries, so in the hospitality industry they have a lot of evening weekend work and shift work, and they have notoriously struggled too.
“It’s also not just unique to Cumbria, they are problems that the transport industry, regardless of which operator, is facing across the country because of that shift post-Covid.”
When it comes to recruiting bus engineers, Tom explained that West Cumbria faces its own, unique issues.
He said: “The engineering issue is slightly different. If we look at West Cumbria, we have two large employers in Sellafield and BAE that do take a significant number of skilled labourers from the local workforce.
“That makes it a real challenge for organisations that are not in the Sellafield supply chain to try and recruit skilled laborers.”
So, have these issues been addressed?
Following the council and Stagecoach’s announcement to launch a bus service improvement plan – Tom has also shared the behind-the-scenes progress that has been made to improve services so far.
He said: “Some of the things we have done over the last two years include pay rises. So, between May 2022 and May 2024 we increased pay for our frontline staff by 22 per cent.
“We’ve done a lot of work to improve shifts and rosters to give better work/life balance, and we’ve also tried to open up the role for a more diverse workforce to attract more people.
“So now for example, around 16 per cent of all of our drivers are female, which is higher than what it was pre-Covid and that has come from using case studies of existing staff who love and enjoy their job to show that anyone can come drive a bus.
“A lot of the work we’ve done like that in the background has allowed us to get to where we now are in terms of driver position.”
Tom added that he felt the firm has made a significant step forward over the last few weeks in particular.
He said: “Our business has a requirement for 636 drivers and by as of the end of this week we will be 15 drivers short on what we need, and we have 14 drivers in training with us and another 20 drivers that are confirmed to start with us in the weeks ahead.
“We are really confident that the internal challenges that we’ve faced, through a lot of hard work from the teams in the depos, and they’re the ones that deserve the credit, that we’ve overcome these challenges.
“In terms of engineering specifically, we are now fully staffed for skilled mechanics.”
The firm has also increased pay for a second time for engineers as a way of further pushing recruitment.
He added: “We’ve increased pay by 20 per cent again over the last 12 to 18 months.
“One of the things we’ve also done is we’ve utilised sponsored immigration and we’ve brought in four skilled mechanics from Zimbabwe, because we simply could not get them from the local workforce.
“That is part of a larger group of 200 that Stagecoach have brought in nationally as this isn’t a localised problem to Cumbria, this is a national problem where there is a skill shortage, and it is very challenging to recruit and retain staff.”
While vehicle shortages have also been regularly cited as a reason for buses not turning up – Tom said he felt Stagecoach North West has now addressed this issue.
He said: “We have overcome the majority of our vehicle shortage issues and again that comes back to that shortage of mechanics.
“We work on a ratio of one mechanic to every seven buses in our garages, but if for example you are two mechanics short, that is 80 hours a week of productive time that you have lost from your workshop.
“Those 14 vehicles that those two mechanics would have covered, that workload then has to be shared amongst the rest of the staff.
“So it makes it more challenging to do the preventative maintenance side of us looking after our fleet to prevent breakdowns and make sure vehicles are available for service.
“But if you take the last two weeks for example, we have operated over 99 per cent of all of our mileage that we are scheduled to operate and we’re scheduled to operate over 280,000 miles a week, so we are very confident that we have overcome the challenges.”
Stagecoach North West has also said its services in Cumbria are now running at their most reliable since Covid.
We asked Stagecoach to see the data showing this – but were told we would not be able to see the data as it is commercially sensitive.
Bus users have also regularly expressed frustration at the Stagecoach app – which caused people to speak out on social media and call it ‘unreliable’ and ‘broken’, with services often disappearing from it at random.
Tom said: “The app is nationally owned by Stagecoach and is not Cumbria unique, but we do have upgrades in development set to roll out in future which should improve number of journeys being tracked and accuracy of information on it.
“More of our passengers use our app than follow us on social media, so we are focusing our efforts and resource on improving the method of communicating that is used by most of our passengers
“Whilst we have this aspiration that we want to give out the most accurate information we can, these apps are incredibly complicated behind scenes and that’s what takes time to get right.”
We see empty buses going to and from Sellafield for workers – is this taking buses away from public services?
In 2023, we asked Stagecoach if their £1 million contract with Sellafield to provide free bus services for workers was impacting public services in West Cumbria.
At the time, the firm said that vehicles and drivers used for the contract are part of a separate unit and have nothing to do with regular bus services in the area.
We asked Tom to address the rumours that the contract was impacting regular services.
He said: “With regards to the Sellafield contract, the drivers who operate on that contract are on a stand-alone roster.
“To operate on the Sellafield contract, drivers have to be in possession of a security pass.
“We do not put every member of staff through that security clearance process. So it’s not possible for us to take any member of staff and prioritise the Sellafield contract over the local bus network, because they don’t have the security clearance to operate on it.
“I think the other thing about the Sellafield contract is that it accounts for 50 per cent of the vehicles that operate out of our Lillyhall depot.
“As a result of that, it actually covers 50 per cent of the overheads of running that depot so without the Sellafield contract, it would mean that the cost of operating a local bus network would essentially double.
“It would then be incredibly challenging on a commercial basis to maintain the existing network and also remain part of things like the £2 fair cap.
“So we don’t prioritise over the local bus network. But the strength of the local bus network and the development of the bus network that we’re doing with Cumberland is helped by us also operating the Sellafield contract.”
The cost of running a single bus in Cumbria is £200,000 – and with the £2 fair in place, the bus must make 100,000 journeys every year just to cover its operating costs, which can be a commercial challenge.
Cumbria also has its own unique issues when it comes to its road network – as journeys are mostly much longer than they are in more urban areas which means diversions, cancellations and late services can naturally be more common.
While the £2 fair cap has been positive for passengers, it has been a commercial challenge for many operators in rural areas.
Tom said: “The £2 cap has been really positive from a passenger journeys point of view and it has increased overall journeys by around about 10 per cent.
“But within that is a mixed picture, so inter urban areas where the £2 cap represents the biggest value for money, that has seen quite strong growth of passengers.
“But in urban areas like Carlisle city centre, we have not seen that same level of growth, because single fares were already below that cap.
“I think one of the misconceptions around it is that we as an operator are only reimbursed on a revenue neutral basis, so we’re not profiteering off the cap.
“But we are hopeful it will continue on after December as it has been a really positive initiative.”
Why is Cumberland Council involved with the new bus service improvement plan?
On Friday August 16 Stagecoach and Cumberland Council announced a multi-phase bus service improvement plan.
It aims to revamp and expand bus services in Cumbria through listening to what services the public want to see improve or be reinstated to the network.
Transport portfolio holder Denise Rollo is behind the collaborative project, that has seen Stagecoach and the council work together in partnership for the first time in recent history.
Denise said: “When I became portfolio holder, bus transport was probably one of the first things in my inbox where people came to voice their complaints.
“We very quickly met with Stagecoach just to air some of those concerns and obviously they are concerns that Stagecoach have heard before and I think what we wanted to do was to reach out and say, right, how can we help overcome these issues.”
Denise added that the council wanted to find out if there was a way for it to support Stagecoach to move forward from the issues it has been facing.
She said: “We were awarded the funding from Department of Transport and then it was about going out to communities to say right ok what areas would you like to see the return of bus services.
“We understand with no doubt that Stagecoach is a commercial company, and we’ve always got to be mindful of that, but it’s about how we can help support them for our communities.
“So I think from the beginning we have had quite a good relationship and we have had some honest and frank conversations and as a councillor and as the council we just want to work in partnership with Stagecoach to make sure we can get the best out of the service.”
Tom added that he felt the public perception of Stagecoach being a large nationwide operator created misconceptions that the team does not care for local services.
He said: “Every member of the local management and leadership team is based in the county.
“We are a business that has a regional base and we employ around 800 people who live and work in the communities we serve.
“We absolutely do care about serving these communities and whilst we are a commercial organisation, we are working with the council in partnership and that has meant we have been really transparent and open with the council about the challenges we have been facing.
“They have been challenging us on some of our decisions and some of the levels of service that we have been operating at and that is where this bus service improvement partnership is coming from.
“It’s about how we can deliver a better bus network for the county and how we can do that together.”
But if Stagecoach has been struggling – how will it deliver the new bus improvement plan?
Tom said that Stagecoach is confident it will be able to deliver the bus improvement plan now that the issues it was facing have been mostly addressed.
He added: “The improvement plan is a mixture of enhancement to the existing network and the reintroduction of new links that are not there currently between different communities.
“We have no confirmed dates at this stage for when those services exactly will be coming in. But I am confident that where we are at in terms of driver numbers and the number of colleagues that are joining us in the weeks ahead, that in the next two to three months we will be in a position to launch these services, and for them and our existing network to operate reliably.”
The bus improvement plan will take place in phases that both Denise and Tom have said will be carried out slowly to make sure each target is hit.
Denise added: “Phase one is looking at creating resilience within some of the routes and I think it’s important to get the message out there to people that there are services where you use them or lose them.
“There are obviously people who do use them, but what we need to do is encourage people out of their cars and onto public transport and that is the main focus of the council.
“That is part of our environmental pledge and it also helps with getting people moving around.
“With phase two what we’re looking at is Cumberland is obviously quite a rural area, and we do get quite a lot of people complaining that there are no rural networks.
“So it’s about how we can look at supporting some of the more rural areas with getting around and we know there are some little community bus services and things like that, and it’s looking at whether we can support them better.”
Denise added that the services the council are planning to bring back were decided on by community panels who created a wish list of services they wanted to improve or return.
Phase two will see the community panels put forward more service ideas and the results of phase one will also be taken into account.
How long will it take to see bus services actually improve?
While Stagecoach has said it is hopeful the bus service improvement plan will be launched within the next two to three months – Tom said services need public support to stay viable.
He added: “I would probably argue it’s up to the communities. The quicker more people use these services from the start, the more resilient these services will become.
“That will allow us to a) ensure they are viable in the medium to long term and b) look at how we can grow and develop them.
“So where we are looking at introducing the 22 service which is that Cleator, Cleator Moor to the hospital service, that will start with a small number of journeys.
“But actually, if people use it and positively engage with that service there’s no reason why we can’t increase the frequency of that service.
“But it is down to the passengers and the residents in those communities and the success of the services will be down to how often they are used.”
Tom also said he feels general improvements made to services with increased staffing levels and vehicles availability are already starting to be more noticeable across Cumbria.
So, can I rely on local bus services again?
While the bus service improvement plan aims to revamp services in the area – only time will tell if Stagecoach and the council’s goals are met.
Denise said: “People come to me asking us to hold Stagecoach to account, which we do, and I think us working together shows that we actually mean business and that it’s not just Stagecoach doing what they want to.
“We do actually have this good working relationship now and I am hoping residents will feel that.”
Tom said that he felt Stagecoach North West staff members have worked hard to bring forward big improvements to service reliability in Cumbria.
Tom said: “There are over 19 million journeys made on our network every year. So millions of people do rely on our journeys and can rely on us to make the journeys that they want and need to make.
“We absolutely respect that in certain pockets over the last two years we have not been as reliable as passengers expect.
“The people that work in our organisation, everyone has worked incredibly hard to operate as reliably as we can and to get us back to the position we are now and I do think the staff deserve a lot of credit for doing that.
“I do want to go on record and publicly give my appreciation to the staff in the depots over the last two years.
“They have all worked incredibly hard and they are all incredibly passionate about delivering a really good bus service and they are a credit to the communities that we serve.”
