The UK transport group took over running the public bus service from CT Plus on 1 April last year.
‘It has been an incredible year for Stagecoach on the island,’ said Peter Knight, managing director at Stagecoach South West.
‘Our team has worked tirelessly to ensure customers get a clean, reliable service, and it’s been wonderful to see how our employees go above and beyond every day for the community.’
The company has also worked with the Environment & Infrastructure Committee on developing services and introducing new electric buses on to local routes.
It denied that the two new electric buses, bought by the States last year at a total cost of £700,000, were proving to be too big for local roads and were being restricted to coastal routes.
‘The electric buses can operate across all routes, with full risk assessments and driver training completed before entering service,’ said Mr Knight.
‘The vehicles also underwent a trial to ensure they perform effectively across the network.’
When the buses arrived in January the company said it would be a few months before they were in service as all drivers would need training and it needed to finalise infrastructure and engineering training.
The States is looking to introduce a zero-emissions fleet by 2030 and the company operates nearly 1,000 electric vehicles across the UK.
Mr Knight added that Stagecoach was working with the States to gradually replace the diesel fleet with more electric buses.
Environment & Infrastructure president Adrian Gabriel said the committee was delighted that Stagecoach had ‘hit the ground running’ on local buses.
‘As well as the day-to-day bus services, they’ve also used their extensive experience to help us propose changes to Guernsey’s bus route map and timetable to improve the service for users,’ he said – though timetable changes and the cancellation of some routes put forward recently still have not been implemented.
‘We look forward to continuing to work in partnership with them to provide islanders with a reliable bus service.’
During their first year Stagecoach said it was also pleased that staff had been recognised and praised for good service, including one incident where a driver took a passenger, who had been concerned about diversions caused by an emergency road closure, direct to a doctor’s appointment.
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