Stagecoach Manchester

[Mayneway]

RE: Stagecoach Manchester and Wigan

(11/03/2017 15:38)Dentonian Wrote:  Actually, that's the saddest part. Yes, the main criticism of First was always that decisions were made hundreds of miles away by people who didn't know the difference between Mossley and Moss Bank Way, but Stagecoach was different. if you take out individual incidents around Easter 2006 around EO stand at the height of the bus war with UKN, I found Stagecoach to be thoroughly professional as both a passenger and an industry "partner" from the late nineties right up to around 2013. However, since then standards have dropped markedly, with total refusal to address punctuality problems outside the city of Manchester boundary, and cutting services in low car ownership areas to fight to fund a bus war in Salford charging ridiculously cheap fares. The only consolation - so far! - is that road staff have not allowed their standards to drop like the rest of the company.

Going back to Easter 2006, In regards to maintaince and standards yes stagecoach was a lot better than thier notorious rival but they themselves used some underhand tactics to thwart the restrictions put in place at the time by MCC allowing only 1 bus of one service at any one time so you would get a stagecoach 192 with a stagecoach 211 out of service behind followed by a third stagecoach bus on a 347 not in service, as soon as the 192 at the front pulled away the bus behind suddenly changed into a 192 and so on and so on.
Both companies used inspectors or public relation operatives to try and entice would be punters onto thier buses instead of the rivals. At times they were rude and intimidating.

The point I'm making is Stagecoach were as much a part of the bus war as UKN. Some would say they were protecting what was there's others, including me would say they were just as much to blaim for the chaos at the time.
But yes I do agree that over the last 10 years or so standards have dropped.