Ember: Electric coach service

CMBS · 8 Oct 2026

Ember have announced intentions to double their fleet size with backing from private equity within 18 months and introducing more night services, this comes after 6 years in operation.

Flixbus have essentially managed to hover up everything in a large chunk of Europe, and in a very short amount of time. How much of a risk with Ember's model does it pose towards Flixbus in the coming future given it's somewhat ambitious plans? Flixbus follows conventional coach company methods of operation, and certainly in the Scottish market at the moment there doesn't appear to be much innovation from Flixbus at the very moment.

If range in EV coaches does not improve in the future, Ember may be limited to the regional market, unless national routes can be made with charging breaks.

https://www.ember.to/news/#ember-raises-£18m-to-keep-building-the-next-generation-of-public-transport-8-oct-2026

RailUK Forums

overthewater · 8 Oct 2026

That press released hasn't said anything new or given us in sight what there really up to. There were always going to get another 100 coaches within the next year because of ScotZeb3. If they had told us about what's planned for the Kirkcaldy Depot or if they going to Ayrshire... but they have hinted at England

Looking further ahead, we intend to bring that experience to other countries and regions.

that's the only interesting bit.

Buzby · 8 Oct 2026

CMBS said:
Flixbus follows conventional coach company methods of operation,

Really? I look at them as a ‘virtual’ operator - they are a Brand, chose a strident eye-piercing colour, and as far as I can tell don’t own any vehicles nor employ drivers - everything else is sub-contracted. Ember however built everything themselves from scratch, sourcing their vehicles, depots, drivers and an IT system that manages their fleet and retails their tickets to the public. How many operators do that?

Deerfold · 8 Oct 2026

Buzby said:
Really? I look at them as a ‘virtual’ operator - they are a Brand, chose a strident eye-piercing colour, and as far as I can tell don’t own any vehicles nor employ drivers - everything else is sub-contracted. Ember however built everything themselves from scratch, sourcing their vehicles, depots, drivers and an IT system that manages their fleet and retails their tickets to the public. How many operators do that?

National Express and Megabus also subcontracted the vast majority of their routes. Flixbus seems to do much the same, though the details of contracts may be different.

CMBS · 8 Oct 2026

Buzby said:
Really? I look at them as a ‘virtual’ operator - they are a Brand, chose a strident eye-piercing colour, and as far as I can tell don’t own any vehicles nor employ drivers - everything else is sub-contracted. Ember however built everything themselves from scratch, sourcing their vehicles, depots, drivers and an IT system that manages their fleet and retails their tickets to the public. How many operators do that?

Meant in UK terms, not sure how things work in Europe. It's generally conventional at least here for intercity operators to contract services out to smaller coach operators and Citylink/DubEx in Ireland also exercise this.
I know Flixbus also contracts out in Europe.

HighlandStorm · 8 Oct 2026

That article Ember posted talks about their real impact coming with 10,000 coaches! o_O

route101 · 8 Oct 2026

HighlandStorm said:
That article Ember posted talks about their real impact coming with 10,000 coaches!

And Ive heard they've nearly finished their expansion in Scotland.

overthewater · 8 Oct 2026

route101 said:
And Ive heard they've nearly finished their expansion in Scotland.

There still 75 coaches worth of work still to be found for these new coaches coming in. You could fudge it and say the oringal 26 have now done 5 years work they can go else where.

Talk is Glasgow to Falkirk to Edinburgh plus a Kirkcaldy to Dundee route. That 15 coaches? there still 60 spare coaches.

Deerfold · 8 Oct 2026

HighlandStorm said:
That article Ember posted talks about their real impact coming with 10,000 coaches!

Though that isn't restricted to Scotland, or even Europe.

Spsf3232 · 9 Oct 2026

route101 said:
And Ive heard they've nearly finished their expansion in Scotland.

No where near finished. They still have approx 40 vehicles still needing work and that's at current use rates. If they tightened up Charging times for vehicles they could run more intense services as currently all vehicles are not utilised to the max mostly.

Each depot has many vehicles parked not charging at any time. I think Livingston is the one that's probably hardest used just now.

overthewater · 9 Oct 2026

Spsf3232 said:
No where near finished. They still have approx 40 vehicles still needing work and that's at current use rates. If they tightened up Charging times for vehicles they could run more intense services as currently all vehicles are not utilised to the max mostly.

Each depot has many vehicles parked not charging at any time. I think Livingston is the one that's probably hardest used just now.

So there around 140 coaches that need work over the coming year?

Volvodart · 9 Oct 2026

overthewater said:
So there around 140 coaches that need work over the coming year?

The article says 18 months.

Spsf3232 · 9 Oct 2026

overthewater said:
So there around 140 coaches that need work over the coming year?

I never said 140, I said 40 or so still to be actively used however most are in service they just are not used effective way. They have the ability to have around 30 to 40 extra vehicles pushed onto new routes just now without even considering new orders for next year

overthewater · 9 Oct 2026

Yes you said 40, but there is still 100 more coming with Scotzeb3 so that mean there could have work or need to find work for 140 coaches.

Spsf3232 · 9 Oct 2026

overthewater said:
Yes you said 40, but there is still 100 more coming with Scotzeb3 so that mean there could have work or need to find work for 140 coaches.

Im refering to vehicles that have arrived this year not due next year

CSB0241 · Sunday at 15:10

In a first for me I’ve not been able to use Ember due to them cancelling one of their trips (in this case the 1310 E15 off of Oban). I intended on getting it back into Edinburgh from Grangemouth however on their website the journey had been greyed out completely & wasn’t tracking.

Is this particularly common with Ember on other parts of the network? I’ve certainly never experienced it with any of their services prior.

Spsf3232 · Sunday at 16:10

CSB0241 said:
In a first for me I’ve not been able to use Ember due to them cancelling one of their trips (in this case the 1310 E15 off of Oban). I intended on getting it back into Edinburgh from Grangemouth however on their website the journey had been greyed out completely & wasn’t tracking.

Is this particularly common with Ember on other parts of the network? I’ve certainly never experienced it with any of their services prior.

Yep pretty common as they struggle for drivers due to the contracts they offer

scottishtrains · Sunday at 16:21

CSB0241 said:
In a first for me I’ve not been able to use Ember due to them cancelling one of their trips (in this case the 1310 E15 off of Oban). I intended on getting it back into Edinburgh from Grangemouth however on their website the journey had been greyed out completely & wasn’t tracking.

Is this particularly common with Ember on other parts of the network? I’ve certainly never experienced it with any of their services prior.

I had an E7 cancel on me today when I went to book it, has happened before to me aswell with one journey being sold out and the other being cancelled

NWSpotting · Sunday at 18:43

So the other week, SG26XRL was in Preston on 28th August... I meant to ask, does anyone have a single clue why? Genuinely confused why an Ember coach was so far south

GusB · Sunday at 18:49

NWSpotting said:
So the other week, SG26XRL was in Preston on 28th August... I meant to ask, does anyone have a single clue why? Genuinely confused why an Ember coach was so far south

It was maybe on a hire.

Volvodart · Sunday at 19:17

GusB said:
It was maybe on a hire.

It was said to be charging on a Blackpool hire.

Spsf3232 · Sunday at 19:26

NWSpotting said:
So the other week, SG26XRL was in Preston on 28th August... I meant to ask, does anyone have a single clue why? Genuinely confused why an Ember coach was so far south

They do private hires

CMBS · Thursday at 12:53

3 more return services have been added on the E5 from Fort William to Glasgow.

https://www.ember.to/news/#more-services-between-fort-william-and-glasgow-15-oct-2026

On 28 October, we're adding three return services a day between Fort William and Glasgow.

From this date, there'll be a total of seven return services a day on this route, with a bus roughly every two hours through the day.

Tickets are on sale now. Search for a journey to see the new departure times.

Purely speculation but judging on recent actions in Fort William and in Caithness, I highly anticipate that a frequency upgrade to the E16 is also due in the coming weeks, with 2 or 3 journeys a day being diverted via Inveraray. The 976 is also still regularly at least half to 2/3 full despite competition from the E16, which also appears to be struggling with capacity as well.

KrisEK · Thursday at 13:48

It's great to see the bus fare cap generating business for the coaches between Glasgow and the Highlands. I only remain concerned that it's going to eat into West Highland Line passenger numbers. Scottish Government really needs to run some kind of survey on passengers as to whether they're switching from car, rail, or just making additional journeys they wouldn't have made.

Volvodart · Thursday at 13:54

KrisEK said:
It's great to see the bus fare cap generating business for the coaches between Glasgow and the Highlands. I only remain concerned that it's going to eat into West Highland Line passenger numbers. Scottish Government really needs to run some kind of survey on passengers as to whether they're switching from car, rail, or just making additional journeys they wouldn't have made.

That was supposed to be part of the evaluation after the Highlands one year trial.

kkong · Thursday at 16:29

KrisEK said:
Scottish Government really needs to run some kind of survey on passengers as to whether they're switching from car, rail, or just making additional journeys they wouldn't have made.

ScotRail have been doing some early work on how it is affecting patronage on their services.

Some details at the FoI response linked below - most of the percentage reductions have been redacted though.

£2.00 Bus Cap

I am seeking to establish what assessment ScotRail has undertaken of that exposure, when the organisation became aware of it, what information has been provided to its senior decision-makers, and what response or mitigation has been considered.

tram21 · Thursday at 23:13

overthewater said:
Yes you said 40, but there is still 100 more coming with Scotzeb3 so that mean there could have work or need to find work for 140 coaches.

Luckily there's a whole lot of potential in a country to the south of Scotland...

That's absolutely what some, if not all the 100 coaches are for.

CMBS · Thursday at 23:24

In other words of Ember victories, Ember with the E14 have managed to slightly kill off WCM's 918 to one journey a day in the winter instead of two, with only an hour to spend time in Fort William.
https://www.westcoastmotors.co.uk/network-changes-oban-mull-bute-and-tarbert-19-october

Service 918 – Oban to Fort William

Service 918 will reduce from two return journeys to one return journey a day, Monday to Saturday. The second journey in each direction will no longer run.

The remaining journeys will depart:
• Oban Station at 09:30, arriving in Fort William at 11:05.
• Fort William Bus Station at 12:30, arriving in Oban at 14:03.

On schooldays, a replacement service 405 journey will leave Oban High School at 15:50, serving Oban Station at 15:57 and continuing to Duror, Dalnatrat, arriving at 16:45. This journey will finish at Duror and will not continue to Fort William.

If this is how the 918 is going to run in the future, I don't see it lasting during the winter months, nevermind Citylink extending the 919 down to Oban for the summer.
Service 918 is fully subsidised in the winter by A&B Council so there's a possibility it will last, but they will likely want to cut costs, as the Oban-Tyndrum corridor already lacks a subsidised service for the most part (minus for Dalavich).

While Ember does not (probably yet) run on the Ardrishaig corridor, I also see the 423 under threat, however unlike the former does have one commercial journey a day, as well as multiple subsidised ones running from morning to evening.

SoloSR334022 · Thursday at 23:35

tram21 said:
Luckily there's a whole lot of potential in a country to the south of Scotland...
That's absolutely what some, if not all the 100 coaches are for.

A service from Edinburgh to Carlisle via Hawick would be really interesting to see.

Buzby · Thursday at 23:51

SoloSR334022 said:
service from Edinburgh to Carlisle via Hawick would be really interesting to see.

Considering AWC do roaring trade on this route in both directions - stopping at Carlisle wouldn’t make any sense!

Ember: Electric coach service

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