Stagecoach West Case Study

Stagecoach West is one of the largest bus operators in the UK. They are a flagship subsidiary of The Stagecoach Group and house 9 depots across The West of England with a fleet size of 1,500 buses. Their operations span from Banbury to Bristol, transporting over 25 million passengers annually. Although Stagecoach West have an excellent and well-run internal driver academy programme, they realised at the start of 2021 that due to the sheer numbers of new drivers they were recruiting, they would not be able to keep up with the demand they have for driver training, without finding a well-tailored, outsourced solution.

• Demand for buses in the regions Stagecoach West covers was skyrocketing
• Already qualified PCV drivers were becoming increasingly more difficult to recruit due to scarcity
• Internal driver training academy could not keep up with demand of pre-qualified drivers being recruited
• Needed to relieve pressure from employed driver trainers as this was impacting quality/training times
• Bus driver shortage causing issues with route scheduling and usual services facing disruptions

HGVC created a bespoke plan focused entirely on licence acquisition for Stagecoach West. Embedding our own PCV training vehicles and trainers within Stagecoach West, we were able to drastically increase the training capacity that they could utilise when we work in-tandem with their driver academy, along with taking the necessary steps to reduce the size of their backlog from Day 1.

• Our trainers focus solely on licence acquisition and achieved results of 85% first time pass rates for Cat D practical training.
• Freed up the time of Stagecoach West’s inhouse trainers, who can then focus their resources on CPC, Theory and Company Ethos training
• Added the ability to train an additional 12 drivers per month (soon moving to 24 per month)
• Training times per candidate shortened by upwards of a month
• Flexibility to train candidates at whichever depot they were based through our roaming vehicle and trainer solution
• Created a system, managed by our head of driver trainers, where Stagecoach West were always aware and  guaranteed a certain number of candidates we could train over a set period of time, which helped them make the necessary future plans for their business and meet the demands of their clients along with promoting business growth.