Stagecoach in Lincolnshire

Stagecoach Lincolnshire is a bus company, formerly known as Lincolnshire RoadCar, which runs services throughout Lincolnshire.

Stagecoach in Lincolnshire is the trading name of the Lincolnshire RoadCar Company Limited, which is a subsidiary of the Stagecoach Group, and part of its East Midlands division

History

Lincolnshire RoadCar was formed in 1928. Under the 1968 Transport Act it became part of the National Bus Company.

When the Transport Act of 1985 deregulated bus services, the National Bus Company was broken up and RoadCar was acquired by the Yorkshire Traction Group in 1988. It took over Lincoln City Transport in 1993.^[1]

RoadCar became a subsidiary of the Stagecoach Group in December 2005, when that company purchased RoadCar's parent company, Traction Group. The company now trades as Stagecoach in Lincolnshire.

From March 2006, Stagecoach issued new buses to the company, in a bid to improve services, gradually phasing out the older of RoadCar's buses. The new vehicles had a temporary RoadCar logo stuck to the front and side windows, and buses from other Stagecoach areas were seen in the area during the transition. The existing fleet then had their RoadCar logos removed.

At the beginning of August 2006, Stagecoach caused considerable controversy with their decision to make major changes to the bus network in Lincoln. Some services were withdrawn without replacement while others benefited from frequency increases. Following a local media campaign, the company agreed to make some changes to return services to those areas which had lost them. At the same time, the company also lost a majority of its service work in Nottinghamshire to Veolia Transport's subsidiary Dunn-Line and local company KJB.

In Autumn 2007 Stagecoach announced the withdrawal of some services in Louth, Lincoln and Gainsborough. The threatened services survived after successful negotiations with the district councils over subsidies.

In August 2008, the company's depot in Louth was closed, with some routes being taken over by Skegness and Grimsby depots, but a number of contracted routes were surrendered.

The company opened their brand new depot in Skegness in September 2009. It is located on Burgh Roada and cost £2.2 million.^[2]

Depots

• Gainsborough (Lusher Way, Corringham Road Industrial Estate) (GH)
• Lincoln (Great Northern Terrace) (LI)
• Newark (Now regarded as outstation of Lincoln)
• Scunthorpe (High Street East) (SP)
• Skegness (Skegness Road, Burgh Le Marsh - previously at Grosvenor Road) (SK)

Route branding

Stagecoach in Lincolnshire use several branding schemes throughout their service network:

• Lincoln city area services are referred to as 'Just Go' routes, but no actual branding is carried on the vehicles, with the exception of MegaRider adverts on most buses. Generally, routes in the Lincoln area are provided using low-floor vehicles, though some Volvo Olympian step-entrance buses remain in use.

• Routes 1/1A and 2 in Gainsborough carry Lincolnshire County Council 'IntoTown' branding, as part of the county council funded improvements to the town services, which saw brand new vehicles introduced in 2006.

• The Scunthorpe town services are branded as the 'Scunthorpe Shuttle' and a number of Optare Solo midi-buses wear this branding on standard Stagecoach livery. This branding was also used by RoadCar, on their standard urban 'SuperBuzz' livery.

• The Newark town services were re-branded as the 'BusAboutTown' from January 2009, in line with similar branding used in Retford and Worksop by Stagecoach in Bassetlaw.

• A number of inter-urban routes in Lincolnshire are branded as 'InterConnect' in partnership with Lincolnshire County Council. These were introduced prior to Stagecoach's takeover of the company and are all operated with double-deck vehicles. Stagecoach in Lincolnshire introduced a new InterConnect livery in December 2008.

• On 23 March 2009 the 350 route between Scunthorpe and Hull was relaunched as the Humber FastCat using six brand-new Alexander Dennis Enviro300 single deckers, wearing a special orange livery and running to an improved timetable. This service is jointly operated with EYMS who use the same livery on a Volvo B7RLE single decker.

• The remainder of routes operated by Stagecoach in Lincolnshire are operated by vehicles in standard Stagecoach livery, without any route branding. No vehicles are now in RoadCar livery, the last buses having now been repainted out of the livery.

References

External links

• Lincolnshire section of Stagecoach website
• Stagecoach's Lincolnshire Fleetlist (1 April 2007)
• Lincs InterConnect website