Stagecoach Gold

## History

Goldline was introduced to try and encourage more middle-class customers to bus services. It was originally trialed in 2 areas, Perth, and Warwick from November 2007, both on services which received kick-start financing from the UK government to help boost these services. Stagecoach East Scotland supplied £300,000 to prove the concept to politicians.

Goldline services were made to a luxury specification. Buses had hand stitched leather seats, metallic paint, exclusive flooring and free Wi-Fi. Drivers wore special attire and there was a Goldline customer code.

In February 2009, the serviceability was spread to Aldershot and in September 2009 to Cheltenham and Gloucester on service 94. At this stage, the brand name was amended from *Goldline* to *Stagecoach Gold*, as well as the primer of a new livery with brighter swoops added, as opposed to the original gold and blue only livery. The reason behind this amendment was that Translink had the rights to the name *Goldline*, using it on their Ulsterbus coach services, and Stagecoach had to pay Translink a royalty.

In 2010, Stagecoach Gold was drawn-out to services run by Scottish Citylink, where Stagecoach has a 35% shareholding, where the Glasgow to Aberdeen and Glasgow to Inverness services were upgraded to Citylink Gold standards.

In 2015, all new Stagecoach Gold vehicles came furnished with USB-A charging facilities underneath every seat enabling passengers to charge mobile devices whilst on board. USB-A charging first became available on Oxfordshire service S4 which was promoted to Stagecoach Gold in September 2015.

As of 2016, all new Stagecoach buses, together with non-gold vehicles, come provided with high back leather seats, USB-A charging facilities and many with free onboard Wi-Fi (most vehicles have had Wi-Fi disabled since Q4 2020 due to high costs to run and low usage from customers.) Subsequently, this means most of Stagecoach's new non-gold vehicles are on par with Stagecoach Gold vehicles. As a result, many non-gold routes had greater specification vehicles than many Stagecoach Gold services using vehicles bought before 2015, Stagecoach Gold vehicles did not come equipped with USB-A charging facilities prior to 2015 (as stated above).

2016 further saw Stagecoach take shipment of the first Stagecoach Gold branded Alexander Dennis Enviro200 MMC and Enviro400 MMC vehicles. The Stagecoach Gold livery remained mostly identical to that on older vehicles but with minor amendments for the new body shape of vehicles. However, Stagecoach made major amendments to the internal upholstery with new elegant leather seating that united a cream coloured headrest with a wood effect floor.

## Routes

As at February 2017 there were 46 Stagecoach Gold routes.

## Future

Stagecoach Group declared their annual 2017/2018 vehicle order on 13 April 2017 with a total expenditure of £70 million on new vehicles. The official fleet handbook was issued late April 2017 and determined that a total of thirty-six vehicles on the system would be to Stagecoach Gold specification. Eleven vehicles will be Alexander Dennis Enviro400 MMCs with seven planned for Stagecoach Merseyside's Birkenhead depot and the leftover four being for Stagecoach in Oxfordshire's Oxford depot. Twenty-five vehicles will be Alexander Dennis Enviro200 MMCs with all twenty-five intended for Stagecoach Midland's Nuneaton depot.