Best UK coaching market?

[Bletchleyite]

Thought I would pull this out into a thread on its own from the Greyhound thread - what is the best (most lucrative) coach route in the UK?

Manchester to London is actually not a great coach route being five or nearly six hours from London, against two hours on a train. Bristol, Cardiff, Birmingham, and even Leeds are much better coach routes to London.

Bristol and Cardiff I'll give you. I'd say Birmingham is not great because of the large amount of rail competition at the bottom end making rail fares very, very cheap as long as you stay away from Avanti. Few people will go by coach if rail is affordable (I bet Lumo is hitting London-Edinburgh!)

I said Manchester because it is one of the UK's biggest InterCity flows by any mode.

Southampton and Portsmouth, where Greyhound ran, dont really seem to be able to support operators beyond National Express.

While a bit further out I think those routes fall foul of a similar thing Milton Keynes does - a decent train service that isn't all that expensive, plus most demand is for day trips to London, where people won't want to lose as much time as they do by coach. Go further away and more trips will be weekends and similar where that extra time can more easily be factored in.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

Oxford to London?

 

[A0]

Thought I would pull this out into a thread on its own from the Greyhound thread - what is the best (most lucrative) coach route in the UK?



Bristol and Cardiff I'll give you. I'd say Birmingham is not great because of the large amount of rail competition at the bottom end making rail fares very, very cheap as long as you stay away from Avanti. Few people will go by coach if rail is affordable (I bet Lumo is hitting London-Edinburgh!)

I said Manchester because it is one of the UK's biggest InterCity flows by any mode.



While a bit further out I think those routes fall foul of a similar thing Milton Keynes does - a decent train service that isn't all that expensive, plus most demand is for day trips to London, where people won't want to lose as much time as they do by coach. Go further away and more trips will be weekends and similar where that extra time can more easily be factored in.

I'd have thought London to Windsor or London to Oxford must be in with a shout.

Both have sustained relatively high frequencies for many years - though the Oxford one has dropped off a bit more recently.

 

[hexagon789]

I always thought it was London/Oxford in England and Glasgow/Edinburgh in Scotland which were both the most competitive with rail AND most lucrative coach routes.

 

[higthomas]

Oxford to London?

Yeah, you're going to struggle to match up to 6 dedicated coaches per hour on a city-city flow.

Unless you count the red arrow from Nottingham-Derby, which is a more consistent every 10 minutes, but not sure if it counts as a coach.

But I think the real winner will be something like Stanstead - London where I think there are multiple operators in competition.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Yeah, you're going to struggle to match up to 6 dedicated coaches per hour on a city-city flow.

Unless you count the red arrow from Nottingham-Derby, which is a more consistent every 10 minutes, but not sure if it counts as a coach.

If the Red Arrow doesn't count as a coach, arguably the Oxford Tube doesn't either? Those two, and probably Glasgow-Edinburgh, are more like stage carriage bus services operated using coach vehicles. The Oxford-Cambridge X5 was the same but of course is now truncated and uses buses.

So I guess what we're saying is that prime coach territory is short (sub 2 hour) shuttles between two nearby heavily touristed or commuted cities where rail somehow doesn't provide as well as it perhaps could, and where traffic congestion isn't an absolute killer given bus lanes etc?

OK, so away from those shuttles, what wins? I'm thinking traditional coaching - not frequent shuttles, typically advance booked?

 

[LiviCrazy]

Citylink/Megabus journeys between Edinburgh/Glasgow and Inverness/Dundee/Aberdeen must be a good shout. Most journeys are as fast, if not faster, than the equivalent train journeys and usually significantly cheaper. They are also very frequent with either direct or 1 change (connected) journeys being at least hourly.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Citylink/Megabus journeys between Edinburgh/Glasgow and Inverness/Dundee/Aberdeen must be a good shout. Most journeys are as fast, if not faster, than the equivalent train journeys and usually significantly cheaper. They are also very frequent with either direct or 1 change (connected) journeys being at least hourly.

Scotland has always "done coaches" more than England - I don't know to what extent that is cultural (i.e. that they were never seen as a third-class mode of transport up there, unlike England?) and to what extent it's just because of an underdeveloped rail network compared to England. Maybe one of our Scottish correspondents will be able to comment on that aspect?

 

[Llandudno]

If the Red Arrow doesn't count as a coach, arguably the Oxford Tube doesn't either? Those two, and probably Glasgow-Edinburgh, are more like stage carriage bus services operated using coach vehicles. The Oxford-Cambridge X5 was the same but of course is now truncated and uses buses.

So I guess what we're saying is that prime coach territory is short (sub 2 hour) shuttles between two nearby heavily touristed or commuted cities where rail somehow doesn't provide as well as it perhaps could, and where traffic congestion isn't an absolute killer given bus lanes etc?

OK, so away from those shuttles, what wins? I'm thinking traditional coaching - not frequent shuttles, typically advance booked?

Pretty certain the Red Arrow counts as a coach as ENCTS are not valid and neither are the £2 Single Fare Cap tickets.

 

[PeterC]

If the Red Arrow doesn't count as a coach, arguably the Oxford Tube doesn't either? Those two, and probably Glasgow-Edinburgh, are more like stage carriage bus services operated using coach vehicles. The Oxford-Cambridge X5 was the same but of course is now truncated and uses buses.

So I guess what we're saying is that prime coach territory is short (sub 2 hour) shuttles between two nearby heavily touristed or commuted cities where rail somehow doesn't provide as well as it perhaps could, and where traffic congestion isn't an absolute killer given bus lanes etc?

OK, so away from those shuttles, what wins? I'm thinking traditional coaching - not frequent shuttles, typically advance booked?

I thought that the Oxford Tube was technically a coach only between Lewknor and Hillingdon with ENCTS valid for local journeys at each end.

 

[Flange Squeal]

Could London to Bristol be up there, with (depending on time of day) National Express frequencies up to every 30-60 mins, Megabus typically every 60-90, and FlixBus around five journeys per day? I must confess I don’t know enough to know if the frequency is down to outright demand or if Bristol is just a convenient call on routes that extend to various other plates though.

London to Cardiff seems to be roughly hourly with National Express, hour and a half to two-hourly with Megabus, and Flixbus offering a couple a day.

EDIT: Ignore this - I saw both destinations mentioned alongside Greyhound and thought of the old route that ran Bristol - Cardiff - Swansea. I missed the bit about their London connection too

 

[Deerfold]

Pretty certain the Red Arrow counts as a coach as ENCTS are not valid and neither are the £2 Single Fare Cap tickets.

Red Arrow used to take ENCTS passes until (with a gap between the two) both councils at the ends of the route ruled that it was a premium service which provided a significant "added amenity" and so they would not fund it. Presumably a similar case applied to the £2 single fares. It is registered as a limited stop local bus service.

Trentbarton accept their normal range of day and season tickets on it, but charge more for a single or return than on the indigo or i4 routes.

 

[RT4038]

Thought I would pull this out into a thread on its own from the Greyhound thread - what is the best (most lucrative) coach route in the UK?



Bristol and Cardiff I'll give you. I'd say Birmingham is not great because of the large amount of rail competition at the bottom end making rail fares very, very cheap as long as you stay away from Avanti. Few people will go by coach if rail is affordable (I bet Lumo is hitting London-Edinburgh!)

I said Manchester because it is one of the UK's biggest InterCity flows by any mode.



While a bit further out I think those routes fall foul of a similar thing Milton Keynes does - a decent train service that isn't all that expensive, plus most demand is for day trips to London, where people won't want to lose as much time as they do by coach. Go further away and more trips will be weekends and similar where that extra time can more easily be factored in.

Here are some thoughts:
Somewhere that is:
(a) single journey is reliably possible in one spell of driver shift ( max is 4h30, so about 3h30) [or in the case of short journeys, a return journey in this time, or other combination]. Don't want to be paying for dead time in shifts, or changeovers, or double manning.
(b) connected by fast roads close into city centres, so journey time is reasonably competitive with rail. Even better if rail is not the most direct.
(c) mix of travellers day trip/longer. (Daytrippers don't like fixing return times so much)
(d) not too much rail competition (such as Birmingham-London with three companies slogging it out)
(e) Local bonuses such as inconvenient siting of stations compared to coach.
(f) route not too congested or unpredictable.
(g) lots of demand between!

So unlikely to be long distance (manning expensive, train journey time difference too great). Won't be coming in to London from the south or the east - motorways peter out too early, and too great a proportion of day trippers.

 

[GusB]

Let's not get bogged down in discussing what is and what isn't a coach service. If it is a service that is intended to be operated with coaches, we should consider it to be a coach service. Now let's get back to talking about the best coaching markets!

 

[Flying Snail]

Belfast - Derry via Dungiven (there's also a slower route via Omagh) A double-deck coach every 30 minutes increasing to 20 minutes peak, it was 15 minutes with added shorts before covid.

Quicker end to end journey time than the train but not so much in competition as complimentary to each other with both having increased frequency and passengers in the years up to 2020.


Not up there with Oxford - London or Edinburgh - Glasgow but they are clearly the top 2 frequency wise.

 

[ANDREW_D_WEBB]

IIRC Bournemouth - London is a good market for coaches.

 

[route101]

IIRC Bournemouth - London is a good market for coaches.

035 National Express service makes good time against the train.

 

[Titfield]

IIRC Bournemouth - London is a good market for coaches.

Yes it sustained both National Express and Excelsior Coachways for quite a long time after deregulation. In the early 1980s National Express were operating an hourly frequency from Bmth from 06:35 to 18:35 plus a couple of earlier departures ex Bmth.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Wasn't this one of the early First Greyhound routes (for a bit of thread crossover)? This thread was born out of me saying it wasn't a fantastic market - perhaps I was wrong?

 

[sk688]

Bristol to London , given the frequencies and the sustained competition between Flix, NX and Megabus

 

[Jordan Adam]

Already hinted at above but Aberdeen - Glasgow and Dundee - Edinburgh seem very lucrative markets. The latter is essentially covered by six different options with Scotrail, LNER, Stagecoach X54, Citylink M92, Ember E1 & Xplore More X90, while the Aberdeen - Glasgow service operates 24/7, frequently runs full and requires duplicates.

 

[johncrossley]

Heathrow to Gatwick is an important route not mentioned so far. Several departures per hour.

 

[route101]

Heathrow to Gatwick is an important route not mentioned so far. Several departures per hour.

Yet there is no dedicated service between them.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 Feb 2023 ==

Glasgow/Edinburgh - to London overnight services.

 

[johncrossley]

Yet there is no dedicated service between them.

After the M25 opened, there was a Speedlink service that just went between Heathrow and Gatwick. You can see plenty of pictures of Speedlink Heathrow Gatwick branded coaches online. There was also Jetlink that went something like Brighton - Gatwick - Heathrow - Stansted - Norwich run by the same firm. Between the two services there was a coach roughly every 15 minutes between Heathrow and Gatwick, just by that one company. Some time after National Express took them over, they decided to serve Gatwick - Heathrow as part of longer distance services only.