Stagecoach Bluebird picked up the 'Driving Sustainability' prize at the Chamber's Northern Star Business Awards.
Stagecoach Bluebird provides safe, reliable, comfortable value for money local bus services in the North-east of Scotland and aims to provide a credible alternative to the use of private cars.
A fleet of almost 200 vehicles cover more than six million bus journeys annually.
Stagecoach Bluebird is a major local employer and more than 500 staff work across its eight depots – Aberdeen, Stonehaven, Ballater, Insch, Peterhead, Fraserburgh, Elgin and Macduff. The company has recently been recognised for being an industry leader in gender equality with one in five of its bus drivers women, more than three times the industry average.
In the last five years the company has invested heavily in technology including contactless payments for all buses as well as a mobile app with live bus tracking.
Last year Stagecoach Bluebird committed to an £11million investment in 22 fully-electric vehicles for Aberdeen city, plus a further £1million for charging infrastructure. In total 100 buses are based out of Aberdeen depot, of which 24 are electric hybrids.
In 2021 Stagecoach Bluebird was awarded the GreenRoad depot of the year award for the sixth consecutive year. Using a traffic-light LED system on the dashboard, the system gives drivers instant feedback on their driving manoeuvres, encouraging smoother, safer and more fuel-efficient driving.
To date, use of GreenRoad’s system and Stagecoach’s comprehensive driver training programme has helped deliver an improvement in fuel efficiency and a reduction in CO2 emissions across Stagecoach UK operations.
The company’s desire is for short distance single person car journeys to become as unacceptable as the use of single use plastic bags. Eliminating these journeys and moving people to mass transit such as buses and coaches will play a pivotal role in addressing the climate emergency and creating better places to live and work.
Stagecoach Bluebird is committed to “green” its bus fleet by investing in low and zero carbon alternatives to conventional diesel buses and no longer purchase even the cleanest diesel buses by 2035.