What Stagecoach says is behind 'poor' bus services in Exeter
The manager of Stagecoach in South West has admitted bus services in Exeter have been poor over the past 12 months.
Stagecoach's Mike Watson was grilled by councillors at a council meeting today (12 April) to discuss the current state of bus services in Exeter.
Watson said the poor performance had been personally devastating for him and his team, who he said are determined to resolve the situation.
"We're putting in a range of plans to improve that situation pretty rapidly," he said
Stagecoach boss spoke to ITV News West Country about the delays to the service
The company says it faced a severe shortage of drivers during the coronavorus pandemic and is promising improvements.
Stagecoach is the city's largest operator and says 92% of its services are running - a figure which is usually 99%.
Stagecoach said it was faced with large numbers of employees who decided to leave after the lockdowns.
Many of them wanted a change or were tired of the unsocial and weekend hours.
Stagecoach are currently missing around 55 drivers across Devon, compared with the 100 they were down by 12 months ago.
They say they have new staff going through the recruitment process, but driver positions take around 15 weeks to fill.
Mike Watson said: "In Exeter particularly we have 70 people in the system waiting to join us, we have lots of people applying for roles with us.
"It's a good job and there's a lot of people who find that quite attractive so we've just got to get them through the door as soon as we can."
ITV asked people in Exeter about the city's buses
What do politicians think?
Local politicians said frustrations over bus services were one of the most talked about concerns raised by residents.
The Conservative councillors want more people to get back on the buses and more money to be spent on marketing.
Conservative Councillor Andrea Davis from Devon County Council said: "Nationally, there was a very strong message that went out at the start of the pandemic telling people not to use public transport and we've never had the opposite happen of it is perfectly safe to be on public transport."
Meanwhile, the Labour members group believe the government should review the entire business model for local buses.
Exeter City Council's Rob Hannaford (Labour) said: "I think there needs to be a government intervention in the system. I think we need to look at new models and new mechanisms of delivering it with more state involvement.
"I think we've got to be realistic, if we want a good quality environmentally friendly bus service then we're going to have to have some subsidies to back that up."
In Devon all political parties want to see lower emissions too - especially the Green Party.
On the question of electric buses Stagecoach says it still costs twice the price of a diesel one and the company could not afford them without some form of support grants from the government.