Stagecoach wins top industry award

Stagecoach has been recognised with a top industry award for its work leading bus-friendly street design in new residential developments.

The company picked up the Public Transport Award at the 2019 Chartered Institute of Highways and Transportation Awards for its stakeholder engagement and work in producing the ‘Bus Services and New Residential Development Guidance’ guide*.

Stagecoach was praised by a panel of expert judges for being at the forefront of innovation, and leading partnership working to improve transport and mobility across Britain. This the first time that a specific award for public transport projects has been made by the Institution, which is the UK’s principal professional body for transport planners and engineers.

Stagecoach’s comprehensive guidance document is aimed at town and transport planners, urban designers and highways engineers and stood out from a number of high-profile bus, tram and rail projects – including major capital schemes - because it showed how a transport operator had taken the initiative to help all parties involved in the complex world of town planning and design work more effectively together, to achieve consistently better results.

The guidance sets out a range of simple and practical examples of good and best practice, with illustrations, to ensure that bus services can offer the best possible choice to residents in new developments.

Stagecoach’s Head of Strategic Development and the Built Environment, Dr. Nick Small, said: “It’s a great honour to be recognised for the contribution this guidance has made to helping our planning and development industry partners do the little things consistently well, and connecting up thinking across a range of disciplines. This perfectly aligns with what our bus and coach operations seek to achieve for our customers and communities on a daily basis: the highest quality and best-value experience for people’s everyday journeys.

“Stagecoach services are vital to connecting cites, communities and neighbourhoods across the UK, allowing them to thrive. The Government has recognised for some years that a shortage of housing, and traffic congestion, are both throttling the economic potential of the country. It is vital that in solving one problem, we do not make the other worse.”

Andrew Hugill, Director of Policy & Technical Affairs, CIHT; said: “Stagecoach has developed new guidance that shows how service providers, transport planners and developers can work together to deliver better results in new developments. It tackles a major problem for public transport and presents a clear challenge for the transport and house building sectors to deliver better results.”

The Guidance is available on the Stagecoach Group website, and as well as offering general advice, explains how local operating companies can be contacted to give specific locally-tailored input to development schemes of all kinds, in order to help development promoters and designers facilitate bus services offering the best possible travel choice. This is turn will help to reduce demand for car use, easing congestion and air quality problems.

-ENDS-

*The Document is available via the following link from the Stagecoach group website:
https://www.stagecoach.com/~/media/Files/S/Stagecoach-Group/Attachments/pdf/bus-services-and-new-residential-developments.pdf