Transport giant Stagecoach yesterday toasted a rise in the number of passengers carried by its regional bus operations after a leap in summer trips helped deliver a revenue hike of 4%.
The Perth-based firm, chaired by entrepreneur Sir Brian Souter, said passenger volumes outside London rose by 0.9% driving up sales on the local bus network during the 12 weeks to July 20.
It was confident it would continue to “get people out of their cars and back on board the bus” after placing orders for more than £90 million worth of green buses during the present financial year.
Meanwhile, new contracts helped the company’s London bus division to 14.4% revenue growth on a like-for-like basis, but the upturn was lower than expected thanks to long-running roadworks in the UK capital.
Its UK Rail arm saw sales lift by 4.9%, as did the group’s operations in North America where its budget megabus.com service continues to expand.
Receipts at Virgin Rail, which runs the West Coast Rail franchise, climbed by 5.7%.
Around 2.8 million passenger journeys are made on Stagecoach buses each day, including on the Stagecoach East Scotland network and in major English cities like Liverpool, Newcastle, Hull and Manchester.
Stagecoach said revenues earned directly from fare-paying passengers contributed most to the bus division’s 4% growth rate, with concessionary, contract, tendered and school revenues also continuing to grow despite efforts by local authorities to minimise concessionary reimbursements.
The group recently failed to secure the new Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern rail franchise, but the blow was offset by the award of a new West Coast franchise to Virgin, lasting until 2017, and on improved terms. Stagecoach has a 49% shareholding in the partnership.
It is also in discussions with the Department for Transport over extensions to its directly held South West and East Midlands franchises, although a decision on these is not expected until after next year’s general election.
Stagecoach said profitability remained “satisfactory” ahead of its annual meeting of shareholders at Perth Concert Hall later this week.
But it warned of some bumps in the road which are yet to be overcome.
“Although there are a number of challenges to growing profit in the year ending April 30 2015, overall current trading is satisfactory and we remain on course to meet our expectations for the year,” the firm said.
Shares opened the day slightly higher and climbed during the session to close up 1.93% at 366.42p.