Stagecoach South Midlands

Stagecoach in Oxfordshire

Stagecoach branded ADL Enviro 400 bodied Scania N230UD in Oxford City Centre on route X30 to Wantage
Parent	Stagecoach
Founded	July 2002
Headquarters	Oxford
Service area	Oxfordshire
Service type	Bus and coach services
Destinations	Oxford, Witney, Banbury, Bicester, Carterton, Chipping Norton, Wantage & London
Fleet	170 (January 2017)
Website	www.stagecoachbus.com/oxfordshire

Stagecoach in Oxfordshire is a bus operator based in Oxford. It is a subsidiary of Stagecoach. As well as Oxford, Stagecoach in Oxfordshire provides services in Abingdon, Banbury, Bicester, Carterton, Chipping Norton, Wantage and Witney as well as providing a regular express coach service between Oxford and London.

In the 1990s Stagecoach South Midlands was formed from Midland Red (South) and Thames Transit were both purchased by Stagecoach.

Stagecoach South Midlands operated under four different brands:

In July 2002, the Banbury and Oxford brands were merged under the Stagecoach in Oxfordshire brand. In March 2004 Stagecoach in Oxfordshire and Stagecoach in Warwickshire were split to into two separate divisions with those names.

Buses in Oxford operate in competition with local buses operated by the Oxford Bus Company. Oxford is one of the few UK cities where such free and unsubsidised competition, as envisaged by the architects of bus deregulation in the 1980s, still exists.

Similarly the Oxford Tube services competes with the Oxford Bus Company's X90 Oxford-London service. This unusual level of both service and competition is facilitated by Oxford's status as a university city, lack of car parking spaces in the city centre, and the consequent large numbers of young, affluent but car-less residents.

In 2010 it was announced that a quality partnership had been agreed between the two principal bus operators and Oxfordshire County Council leading to coordinated timetabling on four key corridors and improved multi-operator ticketing across the City. On 15 July 2010, Stagecoach in Oxfordshire introduced a fleet of twenty-six hybrid buses on Routes 1 (Blackbird Leys) and 7A/7B (Kidlington). Double deckers were selected over single deckers as a result of the co-ordinated timetables and reduced frequencies to be introduced under the quality partnership.