Ember: Electric coach service

[astroatlantica]

Ember have just applied to convert the old Arnold Clark service centre on Dundee's Dock St into a charging hub:

https://idoxwam.dundeecity.gov.uk/idoxpa-web/applicationDetails.do?keyVal=T0KV0AGCMIT00&activeTab=summary

 

[trei2k]

There is a new article on Ember in the Press & Journal newspaper: https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/transport/6830338/interview-ember-bus-expansion/
There isn't much new here for us, but some may find it interesting.

Interview: What’s next for Ember as bus fleet expands across the north of Scotland?

Ember has been rapidly expanding its fully-electric bus service across the north and north-east. More and more of the huge, eye-catching black and green coaches are taking to the roads, particularly around Aberdeen, Inverness, Elgin and even now Royal Deeside. Co-founders Keith Bradbury and Pierce Glennie swapped their London careers to launch Ember in Scotland five years ago.

Having travelled on buses across the country, and even abroad, the pair realised that bus transport “could be much better than what it is today”. It became their mission to build something people would actually want to use. And that’s exactly what they’ve done.After starting with just two coaches in 2020, they now have 78 vehicles and plan to have around 130 by next year.

But just what makes Ember so different from the bus services already on offer, and why is it becoming such a popular alternative? We caught up with Keith to find out.

Launching Ember in Scotland felt natural to Keith and his partner Pierce, particularly because of the Scottish Government’s ambitions at the time. This includes the “slightly controversial” aim to cut car kilometres by 20% by 2030. Although this has since been scrapped, the aim aligned with their goals. The pair, who are bus users themselves, were determined to create a “decent alternative” to encourage people to get out of their cars. But just how would they manage to do this? Well, they came to the conclusion that bus companies weren’t providing a service that people “actually want to use” and that buses hadn’t really changed since they were at school.

“You end up in what’s known as this death spiral of getting worse and worse services with fewer and fewer people using it,” Keith explains. “It reaches a point where there’s no service.

“My local bus service nearly got pulled for that exact reason.

“It was not a very good service, people didn’t want to use it, therefore it was thought to be unprofitable.

“But we have this fundamental belief that if you have the right product, the right technology and the right vision – people will want to use it.

“Our approach is to be a passenger first, and try to treat people as you would want to be treated – and that will get customers.”

Although Keith and Pierce live in the Central Belt, they have a strong focus on routes across the north and north-east. The pair say they have trialled many different existing services in these regions to try to work out what is actually needed, and are continuing to look at more options – but more on that later. So far they’ve launched several routes, including an Aberdeen to Edinburgh service, Aberdeen to Inverness, Inverness to Thurso, and now most recently, a Royal Deeside route.

Keith has been mountain biking in Ballater a few times, and he said he found it “very difficult” to plan a day out around the current bus service. “You end up defaulting to a car effectively,” he says. “I know some local services have tried to make it easier to take your bike on them, but you need absolute confidence to build your day around that.

“Like a guarantee if I turn up I will be able to get on with my bike. I can’t just risk being told that I can’t get on, because then my day is over.” The E11 Ember service, that connects Aberdeen and Dundee via Braemar, currently only runs one return service a day. Keith promises there will be a “small” service increase “relatively soon”.

New super-fast chargers making expansion a reality
And just how have they been managing to roll out these services so rapidly now? Keith says a new charging hub built in Aberdeen has been a gamechanger for their plans. However, finding a plot of land, legal and lease negotiations and construction work all took time.

The team is building everything from scratch, and when they found their plot in Bridge of Don they managed to install some of the fastest chargers in the country. This meant they were able to launch the fully-electric service from Aberdeen all the way to Edinburgh – using bigger coaches with more seats and a bigger battery. These buses are able to go to the capital city and back on a single charge.
“We have this challenge I guess,” Keith adds, “in our business you need to coordinate both having enough vehicles and enough charging capacity and enough drivers to be able to launch services.

“So sometimes we need to go step by step.” But now that they’ve laid the foundations, things are starting to pick up and they have started looking at making services even better – as well as eventually adding more routes.

‘Ember is not competing with Stagecoach’

I couldn’t help but wonder if Ember’s grand plan was to eventually take over the north and north-east – and in doing so push Stagecoach out. Particularly since many routes they’ve launched on already have a Stagecoach service in place. But Keith explains they don’t see themselves as competing with the bus company, but actually with all the journeys happening by car.

“Let’s say if you pick a road like the A93 going out of Aberdeen,” he says. “If you go and stand on the side of that road and you count the number of cars that pass in any sort of 10-minute period it will give you an idea of how many people are travelling on that road. “I view that as who we’re competing with; how do we get all of those people we know that are travelling today to use Ember instead of their cars? “To us it’s kind of a big opportunity and in a way it would allow for Stagecoach to continue to exist. We’re not talking about needing to steal their customers, we’re talking about going after a much bigger market.”

Providing an alternative to rail travel
He also explains that while people think the train is a good option, they can be expensive and they aren’t the most flexible. Most people still have to travel to a train station too, and there can be plenty of delays and cancellations. The co-owner proudly tells me that their cancellation rate is “far, far lower” than trains too. He adds: “I think that’s where roads have a kind of fundamental advantage over train – we can come closer to you and we can get closer to these kind of smaller villages. “We can get people closer to where they are both starting from and where they’re going and we can do it at a lower price ultimately.”

‘The future is black and green,’ says Ember boss
Keith and Pierce are constantly looking at the services they run and working out how to make them better and where they can run next. And now, the company is gearing up to add another new charging hub in Inverness, meaning it will free up some capacity in Aberdeen. Keith hints that this could lead to them being able to run more routes out of Aberdeen. Although he’s keeping his cards close to his chest, he does mention that they have looked at the routes going north to Peterhead as well as south of the Granite City. But he reiterates that adding more routes is a “somewhat slow process” and he can’t guarantee any more updates just yet. “We started with two coaches and everyone told us what we were planning to do was impossible,” he adds. “We have proved that it was possible and we’ve been scaling up the fleet since. “So 12 months ago we had 38 vehicles and now we own 78. Next year we plan to have 130 vehicles, so that increase is really rapid now and that’s because we’ve done the foundation work.

“Now we just need to increase the services… the future is black and green,” he laughs.

 

[scottishtrains]

The E11 Ember service, that connects Aberdeen and Dundee via Braemar, currently only runs one return service a day.

Correction, there is actually two return services per day as of now

 

[overthewater]

‘Ember is not competing with Stagecoach’

I couldn’t help but wonder if Ember’s grand plan was to eventually take over the north and north-east – and in doing so push Stagecoach out. Particularly since many routes they’ve launched on already have a Stagecoach service in place. But Keith explains they don’t see themselves as competing with the bus company, but actually with all the journeys happening by car.

“Let’s say if you pick a road like the A93 going out of Aberdeen,” he says. “If you go and stand on the side of that road and you count the number of cars that pass in any sort of 10-minute period it will give you an idea of how many people are travelling on that road. “I view that as who we’re competing with; how do we get all of those people we know that are travelling today to use Ember instead of their cars? “To us it’s kind of a big opportunity and in a way it would allow for Stagecoach to continue to exist. We’re not talking about needing to steal their customers, we’re talking about going after a much bigger market.”

At long last someone gets it. It's rather refreshing to see statement being made, about who the real competition really is.

 

[alan25]

At long last someone gets it. It's rather refreshing to see statement being made, about who the real competition really is.

VERY refreshing

 

[Lx008]

Edinburgh to Newcastle is a similar distance to Edinburgh to Aberdeen, which they already do.

Difference being that the train to Aberdeen is 2h40 and the train to Newcastle is 1h20

Why would I take the bus when I can take a faster train that is also more environmentally friendly

 

[Strathtay 260]

Why would I take the bus when I can take a faster train that is also more environmentally friendly

Cheaper?.. Comfier..?
Have you tried Ember (which is fully electric therefore "environmentally friendly")?

 

[hexagon789]

Cheaper?.. Comfier..?
Have you tried Ember (which is fully electric therefore "environmentally friendly")?

Trains don't have road tyres, which are vastly more polluting and harmful than exhaust emissions.

 

[markymark2000]

At long last someone gets it.

It's literally the owner who said it. He has to defend his business as not competing with Stagecoach given the extremely large amounts of pubic money being given to them. If they openly said 'thanks for all the taxpayers money, we plan on competing with Stagecoach' it wouldn't go down well!

 

[Strathtay 260]

Trains don't have road tyres, which are vastly more polluting and harmful than exhaust emissions.

True

 

[johncrossley]

Trains don't have road tyres, which are vastly more polluting and harmful than exhaust emissions.

The pollution from tyre particulates are not zero, and should not ignored when vehicles are described as 'zero emission', but what does the science tell us when comparing the pollution from exhaust and tyre particulates?

 

[hexagon789]

The pollution from tyre particulates are not zero, and should not ignored when vehicles are described as 'zero emission', but what does the science tell us when comparing the pollution from exhaust and tyre particulates?

That is approximately 2,000 times more harmful to human health than exhaust fumes as exhaust emissions have become better over time and cars more efficient but they also on average heavier and the materials used to manufacture car tyres have gone the other way - they've become more harmful.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 Aug 2025 ==

True

There's also the point of where the electricity to charge said batteries has come from.

Even if it were entirely from renewables, the infrastructure necessary to capture that energy will not have been built in an entirely "green" manner...

 

[slowroad]

The pollution from tyre particulates are not zero, and should not ignored when vehicles are described as 'zero emission', but what does the science tell us when comparing the pollution from exhaust and tyre particulates?

Brake dust also matters. Presumably both trains and road vehicles produce such dust. I wonder how they compare ? (I think I have read it’s a big problem in tunnels, particularly for the London underground.)

 

[InOban]

Brake dust also matters. Presumably both trains and road vehicles produce such dust. I wonder how they compare ? (I think I have read it’s a big problem in tunnels, particularly for the London underground.)

But with regenerative braking, EVs produce very little brake dust.

 

[GusB]

At long last someone gets it. It's rather refreshing to see statement being made, about who the real competition really is.

It doesn't matter what the Ember management says about competing with cars, the company is still competing with Stagecoach and Scotrail; the only difference is the stopping patterns and the way journeys are booked.

It's literally the owner who said it. He has to defend his business as not competing with Stagecoach given the extremely large amounts of pubic money being given to them. If they openly said 'thanks for all the taxpayers money, we plan on competing with Stagecoach' it wouldn't go down well!

Let's not pretend that Stagecoach hasn't benefitted from the various rounds of EV funding.

Figures come from here - https://www.transport.gov.scot/public-transport/buses/scottish-zero-emission-bus-challenge-fund/

Stagecoach Bluebird​	3066547​
Craig (West Coast Motors)​	2409294​
DGC (Dumfries and Galloway Council)​	523739​
Ember​	5562126​
Stagecoach Fife​	6809264​
First Aberdeen and Glasgow​	18597293​
Stagecoach Highland​	5708424​
Houston​	360246​
McGills​	8664557​
Shuttle​	523740​
Stagecoach Western​	8029890​
Total​	60255120​

Let's isolate the Stagecoach figures:

Stagecoach Bluebird​	3066547​
Stagecoach Fife​	6809264​
Stagecoach Highland​	5708424​
Stagecoach Western​	8029890​
Total​	​ 23614125​

Out of the total funding claimed, Stagecoach received 39.2%. Ember received 9.2% of that funding. £5.6m is a fairly hefty sum of public money but it's less than a quarter of the amount that Stagecoach received.

Disclaimer: any errors in the figures are mine - I've copied into a spreadsheet to do the sums and back again into the post and I can't guarantee that it's error-free

 

[markymark2000]

Let's not pretend that Stagecoach hasn't benefitted from the various rounds of EV funding.

I fully agree Stagecoach has recieved funding. The difference is Stagecoach has used the funding in most cases in areas where they run a network or there is no competition. What I said though was that Ember couldn't come out and say that their main aim was to compete with established businesses as it would cause a lot of upset that the Scottish Govt is giving so much money to an industry disrupter/company who is just competing excessively against multiple other companies and businesses.

If Stagecoach got the funding for new electric buses, then put them electric buses on a new route, a new route which almost completely competes with other established operators, people would be saying the same thing that public funds were being used to fund competing services. Whether that is what is being said in the offices or not, who knows. But if it is, Ember is never going to admit it as it would cause upset.

 

[GusB]

I fully agree Stagecoach has recieved funding. The difference is Stagecoach has used the funding in most cases in areas where they run a network or there is no competition. What I said though was that Ember couldn't come out and say that their main aim was to compete with established businesses as it would cause a lot of upset that the Scottish Govt is giving so much money to an industry disrupter/company who is just competing excessively against multiple other companies and businesses.

Is there anything written in the agreements for ScotZEB funding that says "thou shalt not compete with existing operators"?

Even if Ember was to come out and directly say "we're taking on Stagecoach", so what? Ember exists within the current de-regulated environment and is playing by exactly the same rules that allowed Stagecoach to get to the position it is in today.

Public money should be spent on improving the service for passengers. If that means that a competitor can gain a foothold and challenge an incumbent operator in order to provide a better service, bring it on.

If Stagecoach got the funding for new electric buses, then put them electric buses on a new route, a new route which almost completely competes with other established operators, people would be saying the same thing that public funds were being used to fund competing services. Whether that is what is being said in the offices or not, who knows. But if it is, Ember is never going to admit it as it would cause upset.

Stagecoach received funding for a load of electric coaches to operate a route (Aberdeen - Inverness) on which it knew a competitor was about to launch a new service. It could be argued that it is using public funds to retaliate against a new competitor; I don't see that this is any different to an upstart being allocated funds to go up against an incumbent.

Let's not pretend that Stagecoach is a victim here. It has benefitted from being the sole operator of bus services in north east Scotland for nearly 30 years with the only real competition being for council tenders. Ember has provided a bit of proper competition on a route that Stagecoach seems happy to send Enviro 400s on - vehicles that are totally unsuitable for such a journey.

I'd be interested to know how you see this as "causing upset", unless you mean upset within the Stagecoach management; to that, my response is "boo hoo".

 

[Porty]

E7 Inverness to Aberdeen getting more stops and services from 24th September. 16 services daily and removed restrictions on some short journeys according to Facebook posting.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 28 Aug 2025 ==

...and reading the website news page the E11 Dundee to Aberdeen via Braemar gets lots more stops from 1st October.

 

[GusB]

The new stops on the E7 certainly make it more viable alternative to the M96. From Ember's website:

News

Find out what's new at Ember

www.ember.to

We are adding lots of extra stops and services to our Aberdeen to Inverness service. From 24 September there will be 16 return services per day. Services will depart Aberdeen between 02:00 and 21:00, and Inverness between 02:00 and 22:30. We will also be stopping at many more towns and villages along the way, including Forres, Fochabers and Huntly. At the same time, we are removing restrictions on travelling between Inverurie, Kintore, Blackburn, Aberdeen Airport and Aberdeen.

On 1 October our Dundee to Aberdeen via the Cairngorms service will be getting lots more stops, including Peterculter, Aboyne, Ballater, Glenshee and Coupar Angus. This small but mighty service gives you a directly link from Deeside to Aberdeen Airport, and from Aberdeen and Dundee into the heart of the Cairngorms for a day of walking, or skiing at Glenshee Ski Centre when winter comes.

 

[NorthOxonian]

The new stops on the E7 certainly make it more viable alternative to the M96. From Ember's website:

News

Find out what's new at Ember

www.ember.to

How do the fares compare? The singles do seem cheaper (though obviously on board won't be) but for some returns (and anything involving onward travel) the Bluebird Explorer seems to be slightly better - admittedly I doubt many people do day returns by bus from Elgin to Peterhead/Stonehaven/Banchory!

 

[GusB]

How do the fares compare? The singles do seem cheaper (though obviously on board won't be) but for some returns (and anything involving onward travel) the Bluebird Explorer seems to be slightly better - admittedly I doubt many people do day returns by bus from Elgin to Peterhead/Stonehaven/Banchory!

I suppose it depends on the journey. I've just compared fares for a same day return trip from Elgin to Inverness. Ember is far cheaper: 2x£5.90 vs £19.80 for an Inverness zone 4 Dayrider with Stagecoach. If I was travelling from home by bus, I'd have to factor in the cost of getting to Elgin, so it'd be slightly more expensive using Ember at £20.40 (including my local Dayrider at £8.60). My decision would largely depend on the time of day that I'd be travelling, though.

 

[alan25]

Cheaper?.. Comfier..?
Have you tried Ember (which is fully electric therefore "environmentally friendly")?

Other coach comps also count as eco friendly as a coach generally has less emissons than the train

 

[scottishtrains]

Difference being that the train to Aberdeen is 2h40 and the train to Newcastle is 1h20

Why would I take the bus when I can take a faster train that is also more environmentally friendly

Because its cheap???
Not everyone has money they can splurge out on trains

 

[Buzby]

Not everyone has money they can splurge out on trains

True - although we’re talking about Scotland (and the abandonment of Peak Fares may help somewhat) that said, Ember does instill a good vibe, and I use them in preference if I can - especially on routes that DMUs are prevalent.

 

[FlybeDash8Q400]

Because its cheap???
Not everyone has money they can splurge out on trains

Must admit if you find the right fare on a Lumo you’ll probably give the coach a run for its money. However, generally no trains do cost more than a coach. That aside, if it’s twice as quick, you can’t be surprised that it costs more.

 

[paravostok]

Must admit if you find the right fare on a Lumo you’ll probably give the coach a run for its money. However, generally no trains do cost more than a coach. That aside, if it’s twice as quick, you can’t be surprised that it costs more.

Keep in mind a large chunk of us are fortunate enough to get the bus for free, which can make the time saved seem less worth it, a good example is Edinburgh-Aberdeen, because sure you could pay £20-30 for a significantly faster trip, but for around the same level of comfort and no cost at all you can take a bus, with coaches also being much more flexible, if you miss one just wander onto the next.

 

[takno]

Keep in mind a large chunk of us are fortunate enough to get the bus for free, which can make the time saved seem less worth it, a good example is Edinburgh-Aberdeen, because sure you could pay £20-30 for a significantly faster trip, but for around the same level of comfort and no cost at all you can take a bus, with coaches also being much more flexible, if you miss one just wander onto the next.

Surely you won't be able to do Edinburgh to Newcastle on a concessionary card though, given that it crosses the border halfway.

 

[Buzby]

Surely you won't be able to do Edinburgh to Newcastle on a concessionary card though, given that it crosses the border halfway.

Free to Berwick on Tweed, then standard fare thereafter.

 

[LiviCrazy]

Think it is worth noting a difference between the Scottish and English networks. For a lot of the long distance journeys within Scotland, the coaches are as fast, if not faster, than the equivalent train. Travelling up to Inverness or Aberdeen from Edinburgh, is usually faster unless you get caught in traffic and significantly cheaper. Our lines generally aren’t high speed and the stop a lot, usually more often than the equivalent coach routes.

 

[voidwxrranty]

Think it is worth noting a difference between the Scottish and English networks. For a lot of the long distance journeys within Scotland, the coaches are as fast, if not faster, than the equivalent train. Travelling up to Inverness or Aberdeen from Edinburgh, is usually faster unless you get caught in traffic and significantly cheaper. Our lines generally aren’t high speed and the stop a lot, usually more often than the equivalent coach routes.

from Edinburgh yes. from Glasgow no. ScotRail manage Glasgow - Aberdeen in 2 1/2 hours. Citylink take north of 3 hours.