Keeping you in the Loop - Stagecoach

Welcome to Stagecoachin Chester and WirralFollowing the purchase of the Chester and Wirral basedoperations from First, Stagecoach has now formally takenresponsibility of the services, buses, employees and premises.Stagecoach would like to take this opportunity to welcomeour new customers in Chester, Ellesmere Port, Birkenheadand surrounding areas.You will soon see changes to the buses, passengerinformation and ticket range. Some of this will be a gradualtransition as we work behind the scenes to transfer systemsfrom First to Stagecoach.What does this mean?Buses – We will add Stagecoach logos to thefleet and a repaint programme will begin.We will also be introducing some brandnew buses and Stagecoach branded busestransferred in from other locations, as westart to modernise the fleet. We will provideregular communication to customers throughour ‘Keeping you in the Loop’ updates andour dedicated website page.Fares and tickets – There are quite a fewdifferences between First and Stagecoachticket machines and systems. Stagecoach willbe introducing new tickets machines in thenext few months, but in the meantime wewill be using the First machines. Initially, youwill not notice any immediate changes, otherthan the First logos on the tickets changingto Stagecoach logos. Otherwise, ticketavailability is as follows:• Tickets currently available on the First buseswill continue to be issued and accepted asbefore. This includes single, return, First Dayand First Week tickets. First Month ticketswill no longer be issued.• Unfortunately, we will not be able to sellthe Stagecoach range of tickets initially.We are working on plans to introduce a fullrange of excellent value Stagecoach ticketproducts and will publicise this informationover the coming weeks.• First Month / Annual tickets will be validon the ex First / Stagecoach Chester andWirral buses until expiry, but no newtickets will be issued.• Liverpool city centre – some ex Firstservices (1, 2, 471, 472) enter Liverpoolcity centre, which is an area already servedby Stagecoach buses. Initially, the ex Firstticket range will not be inter-available withStagecoach Merseyside buses, but as wementioned earlier, we are working on ournew ticket products and will announcefurther news in due course.• Paypoint – tickets sales from Paypointoutlets will cease.• Some services are part of the Merseytravel‘Quality Bus’ partnership corridors, withjoint-availability of certain ticketing withArriva. The inter-availability of the daily andweekly tickets will remain unchanged.We have informed Merseytravel that wewill no longer be able to accept theinter-availability of tickets beyond oneweek’s duration and will provide furthercustomer information on this.Routes and timetables – There will be nochange in the immediate future to the routesor timetables operated. New timetable leafletswill be issued for most services, but these aresimply to reflect the new operator name.Additional informationWe recognise that the change in ownershipmay cause some uncertainty and we arelooking to maintain communication with ourcustomers over this transitional period.To keep up to date with any proposed changesto the information listed in this leaflet please:• Keep an eye out for ‘Keeping you in theloop’ material on the buses.• Visit our dedicated website page atwww.stagecoachbus.com andchoosing your local town in the dropdown list of places.