Stagecoach Highlands
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| Parent | Stagecoach Group plc |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1945 (Rapsons) 2008 (Stagecoach Highlands) |
| Headquarters | Inverness, Scotland, UK |
| Service area | Scottish Highlands, Inverness, Orkney |
| Service type | Bus |
| Hubs | Inverness, Thurso, Kirkwall, Portree, Fort William |
| Operator | Stagecoach Group |
| Website | Official Website |
Stagecoach Highlands is the division of the Stagecoach Group which covers most of the former Rapson Group operations after the take-over by Stagecoach in May 2008.
The Rapsons Group was Scotland’s largest independent operator as well as a group of companies serving the Highlands & Islands based from its HQ at Seafield Road, Inverness trading as Rapsons Coaches, Highland Country Buses, Orkney & Causeway Coaches and also operated on long-distance Scottish Citylink/National Express contracts operating over 250 vehicles with approx. 400 employees along with depots in Inverness, Aviemore, Fort William, Portree, Wick, Thurso & Kirkwall. While regular bus services traded as Highland Country, longer distance, express and private contract work operate under the Rapson's name.
Rapsons were founded in 1945 but came further into business between the 1970s to 1980s. In August 1991, Highland Scottish was sold to a consortium made up of Rapsons Coaches that recently privatised Scottish Citylink, for £800k. In March 1993, ownership of Highland Scottish passed wholly to Rapsons and a more modern deep red and cream livery, with a dark red wedge and yellow coachlines, was introduced for the fleet The golden eagle emblem, once used by Highland Omnibuses, was reintroduced in a larger size toward the rear of the vehicle and the company traded simply as Highland. Highland Country buses adopted a starkly different livery to the traditional red by going for a two-tone blue livery, with a large St Andrew's Cross in the centre of its 'Highland Country' logo. However, in October 1995, the company was split in two, with Rapsons retaining the eastern services under Highland Bus & Coach Ltd, with the remainder passed to a new company, Highland Country Buses Ltd. Highland Scottish Omnibuses at that time ceased to exist as a whole concern and in October 1995, the company was split in two and Highland Country Buses was bought by National Express for £1.8m. The two companies continued to exist under separate ownership until August 1998 when Rapsons bought Highland Country Buses back from National Express for £4m – £2.2m. After a brief interval, the assets and services of Inverness Traction were purchased by the Stagecoach Group. Highland, perhaps aware it could not sustain competition against a national operator with a reputation for swift and successful competition, scaled down the level of service against the new operator. Soon after, Stagecoach would purchase the Inverness and Tain operations of Highland Scottish and become the dominant operator of Inverness area services. In 1999, Rapsons began to expand into Orkney of the Orkney Islands bus market with the acquisition of four separate bus companies on the islands, including the largest, James D. Peace & Shalder Coaches. As well as having operations on Orkney, Shalder Coaches was originally a Shetland operator as well meaning that Rapsons also expanded into Shetland beginning an operation trading as Shetland Coaches & Shalder Coaches with a depot based at Lower Scord, Scalloway. However, Rapsons pulled out of Shetland in 2003 after they lost all contracts when going for an increase in rates with most vehicles previously run by Shalder or purchased for Shetland passing onto Rapsons other depots after Rapsons shut down their Shetland operation. In June 2005, Orkney Coaches who is the Orcadian operation became part of Rapsons when the takeover was complete since expanding since 1999 and remained a separate subsidiary to Highland Country Buses.
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