Young Advisors in NE Lincolnshire wanted to address issues with transport in their local area; in particular safety on public transport, reliability and costs. They designed a questionnaire to ask the general public for their views, and also took the questionnaire to local scout groups, schools and colleges. They then took the results to Dave Skepper, Commercial Director of Stagecoach Lincolnshire.

The YAs came up with some great ideas about how to improve local transport, such as: Ride Around for a Pound during the summer, College Passes, Police on Buses, a competition that made the public aware of the safety of public transport and the rarity of accidents, improvements of bus routes, and training with public transport staff. Stagecoach agreed that they would introduce a young persons day rider - on trial over the summer of 2012 - and here are the fantastic results of that decision!

Stagecoach sold 21,630 Holidayriders, which equates to an average of 492 per day. This equates to a total saving of £30,282 for young people this summer holidays (based on a saving of £1.40 per ticket)

Interest in the Holidayrider product built over the holiday period with 1,974 tickets sold in the first week, which had risen to 4,273 in the last week

Stagecoach had already made a change to the age range for child fares by raising the threshold to 16 years from 14 years, which meant that young people's travel was already around 10% higher than last year running up to the holidays. However, when the Holidayrider came for the summer holidays increase in journeys rose to a 50% increase on last year.

Most importantly, there appears to be no impact on adult ticket sales during the school / college holidays caused by the introduction in the Holidayrider, which implies that the majority of the journeys were new business.

The Young Advisors are really pleased with the results, especially as the promotional activity costs were very low - a single advert in the Grimsby Telegraph, on bus posters, and a press release along with their own Young Advisors promotion.

Furthermore, Dave Skepper has decided that the Holidayrider is a good, commercial proposition and one that we should repeat during further school and college holidays in the Grimsby Cleethorpes area.

Very big well done to the YAs in North East Lincs for such great results!