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National Express routes which could be introduced
- Thread starter Simon75
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londonteacher
Member
They are unlikely to run any new routes until/if they stabilise their finances.
The routes you suggest are quite obscure, and without travelling via London, Birmingham or Manchester you are unlikely to get the consistent passenger numbers.
The routes you suggest are quite obscure, and without travelling via London, Birmingham or Manchester you are unlikely to get the consistent passenger numbers.
F Great Eastern
Established Member
Not sure why passengers in some of those places would go to East Midlands Airport when there are bigger airports closer by with far more flights and good connections.
As has been said, NatEx are losing a lot of money right now so highly unlikely to be new routes, much more likely to be many being dropped.
As has been said, NatEx are losing a lot of money right now so highly unlikely to be new routes, much more likely to be many being dropped.
TheGrandWazoo
Veteran Member
As @F Great Eastern and @londonteacher say, and indeed it is in Mobico's latest financial presentations, they have been busy with "network optimisation and focusing on high demand routes". That and they are busy fighting the competition from Flixbus (and Flibco to an extent) so basically, no need to get the crayons out 
Although to be fair wouldn't be as bad of a idea if some routes which pass by om the M1 stop at say eastmidlands gateway as there's will only be a little time penalty for example the 561, 133, 450, 560, 564 and many more which goes past it anyway allowing local connections to derby/notts and the airport. This way you won't need add new routes.
But again depends on demand like F Great Eastern says
As much as may sound nice, with leisure destinations it's got make commercial sence even in say winter when there's less tourist travel. Only way you can serve tourist type places commercially all year around is say if the big city/hub is serves is close by or the company running it runs dead from there anyway such as the 491 london great Yarmouth as the coaches are from Yarmouth so may aswell keep it running from Norwich to gap the dead run.
If say NatEx could afford new routes of your suggestions would more be Colchester (maybe), then onto Stanstead, Cambridge, Leicester not Cambridge Peterborough Leicester as its faster by road via Kettering than Peterborough so can more directly compete with cross country between Leicester and Cambridge and stansead (with a market already there), then your going more into the relms of a unproven route which may not be sustainable so more likely won't happen again and not sure why anyone from either will want to travel there but then onto Stoke-on-Trent and possibly Chester as trains are way faster to manchester and Liverpool from here so
Colchester, Stanstead, Cambridge, Leicester, Stoke-on-Trent, Chester keeping it to bigger cities/hubs than say rhyl or clacton but again it doesn't touch the big hubs such as manchester, London, Birmingham so likelihood it will survive isn't very high and highly doubt a route like this would be made
No mention of ceasing making timetable changes almost continuously which upsets regular customers.As @F Great Eastern and @londonteacher say, and indeed it is in Mobico's latest financial presentations, they have been busy with "network optimisation and focusing on high demand routes". That and they are busy fighting the competition from Flixbus (and Flibco to an extent) so basically, no need to get the crayons out
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Flying_Turtle
Member
- Joined
- 4 Apr 2016
- Messages
- 194
Flixbus is a low-profit line killer...
In Portugal I envisage that in a few years many small towns and villages will lose their express links to Lisbon or Oporto
In Portugal I envisage that in a few years many small towns and villages will lose their express links to Lisbon or Oporto
BULLSAREMAGIC
Member
I reckon any reliable reasonably priced service that covers the East Midlands Railway area would thrive. Not only is the railway one of the dearest but unreliable and in a mess with new stock resulting in reduced service (20 cancellations daily to London), Towns in the Notts/Derbys area such as Alfreton Heanor Ilkeston and Long Eatpon have no coach service that Im aware of.
SSmith2009
Member
Definitely a Leicester > Nottingham > Skegness service could probably work out well given the current EMR offering is awful.
Heanor/Iikeston/Long Eaton are well connected to Nottingham and Derby.
I got the coach a few times between Nottingham and Cambridge on its way to Clacton in the mid 90s - there were 2 or 3 a day (one extended to Liverpool from Nottingham). It used to go via Grantham, but often missed it out. It was typically half full. From Nottingham there's 5 buses an hour to the airport, so they're unlikely to pick up much local traffic.
martin butler
Member
- Joined
- 9 Oct 2018
- Messages
- 847
Would a London victoria to Gatwick, Brighton Eastbourne Hastings Folkestone Dover service work ? linking the major south coast areas, including stops to pick up, set down at Gatwick airport, Folkestone, eurotunnel and dover ferry port
If there was a market there would be a coach. The fact that there isn't says something about the lack of viability. National Express are losing money offering year round journeys between major population centres on motorway routes.
No. The roads simply aren't good enough for that sort of service. Current generations aren't inclined to long way round coach journeys.
I just don't really know what the future is for coach travel. Points can be made about the railway being expensive and being unreliable, but coaches aren't really able to command a big customer base.
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Yes I believe they used to go to the airport
Man of Kent
Member
- Joined
- 5 Jul 2018
- Messages
- 903
That's approximately 160 miles, of which barely a third would be on dual carriageway. Google Maps suggests it would take nearly 4.5 hours by car, so it would not meet drivers' hours regulations for a single driver. In addition,
you can't travel as a foot passenger on Eurotunnel, and only some of the ferries out of Dover accept them, but not at all times of the day. It's a very thin market, which probably wouldn't even fill a taxi.
londonteacher
Member
Quite simply why? And No?
Any service between London and Brighton is already competing with their own services, National Express and multiple railway services.
Anyone wanting Dover will travel on the either the train or the existing National Express services.
Anyone wanting Eastbourne will travel on the reasonably cheap Southern service.
National Express used to run an hourly service London - Gatwick - Brighton (some to Worthing), with short services some hours Brighton to Gatwick Airport, too.
It used to stop at several South London destinations - I once caught it from Streatham to Patcham, but rarely caught one where there was a stop between Victoria and Gatwick on other trips between London and Brighton.
That they diverted this via Heathrow suggests there wasn't enough of a market except for those who don't mind it taking an age - it now takes over 3 hours to Brighton, over 4 to Worthing except for the 0130 and 0230 that skip Heathrow and go fast to Gatwick.
A fair few of the services post covid that were brought back or new don't seem to last like the 184 from Edinburgh to Liverpool or Bournemouth to Gatwick 206.
Surprised the NX Kent services are holding on, mind there is no Flixbus down there.
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Surprised the NX Kent services are holding on, mind there is no Flixbus down there.
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Yes, there was also the A3 Gatwick to Victoria service that went via South London too.
The south London stops on Gatwick services allowed fuel duty rebate or equivalent to be claimed. Historically there had also been a market for coach travel from south London to Brighton and other Sussex resorts. ( see MacLachlan History of grey green and its contemporaries vols 1 and 2 especially vol 2).
Martin1988
Member
I vaguely remember NX introducing a Gatwick to Canterbury (or maybe Dover) service a few years ago but it not lasting very long. Also remember Megabus briefly introducing a service between Bristol and Canterbury which probably lasted for a few months at the most.
The London to Dover route seems to be a shadow of its former self with only a handful of journeys per day now running on the 007 whereas in days gone by it was roughly hourly 7 days a week. The 021 no longer operates anymore either.
Interestingly, from the 'Shuttle' network the 010 has been withdrawn, the 025 altered to run via Heathrow and 007/020 dropped to a handful of journeys. The only one that still seems to have a meaningful frequency is London to Bristol but even that saw cutbacks recently.
It was notable last weekend that there were a few dupes on the 040 suggesting that demand for travel must still be there despite the presence of Flixbus.
Over the last 20 years there have been several instances where the timetable on the Bristol to London route has been reduced at weekends and alongside this, there has been an increase in the number of dupes being used. Remember a spell of about 18 months between Autumn 2005 and March 2007 when there were no extra journeys scheduled at weekends and by the time they were reinstated, the hourly departures on Sundays (and very possibly Friday too) all seemed to require dupes and this scenario occurred again a few years ago when NX briefly reduced the frequency of the 040 before ramping back up after Megabus announced their exit. It will be interesting to see if this happens again going forward.
The London to Dover route seems to be a shadow of its former self with only a handful of journeys per day now running on the 007 whereas in days gone by it was roughly hourly 7 days a week. The 021 no longer operates anymore either.
Interestingly, from the 'Shuttle' network the 010 has been withdrawn, the 025 altered to run via Heathrow and 007/020 dropped to a handful of journeys. The only one that still seems to have a meaningful frequency is London to Bristol but even that saw cutbacks recently.
It was notable last weekend that there were a few dupes on the 040 suggesting that demand for travel must still be there despite the presence of Flixbus.
Over the last 20 years there have been several instances where the timetable on the Bristol to London route has been reduced at weekends and alongside this, there has been an increase in the number of dupes being used. Remember a spell of about 18 months between Autumn 2005 and March 2007 when there were no extra journeys scheduled at weekends and by the time they were reinstated, the hourly departures on Sundays (and very possibly Friday too) all seemed to require dupes and this scenario occurred again a few years ago when NX briefly reduced the frequency of the 040 before ramping back up after Megabus announced their exit. It will be interesting to see if this happens again going forward.
I maintain there is good demand linking major towns to London but the service has to be frequent, fast and have value for money fares. I think how customers value time has changed over the years and are no longer prepared to go around the houses even if the fare seems cheap. I think a good example of this is passengers travelling between London Victoria and London don’t mind going via Ringwood, will tolerate via Heathrow but will not book if it means a lengthy diversion into Winchester and Southampton.
pokemonsuper9
Established Member
I certainly wouldn't be happy if a coach journey advertised from London to London was via Southampton!