First Greyhound services in UK

[Martin1988]

Does anyone have any suggestions as to why First failed with their attempt to launch Greyhound services in the UK?

I only seem to recall a few services. London to Southampton and what I felt was a very overly ambitious Bristol to Swansea service.

Is it possible that First concentrated their resources on the wrong corridor and if they had competed with NX on a key route eg Bristol to London they would have fared better?

 

[M803UYA]

Does anyone have any suggestions as to why First failed with their attempt to launch Greyhound services in the UK?

I only seem to recall a few services. London to Southampton and what I felt was a very overly ambitious Bristol to Swansea service.

Is it possible that First concentrated their resources on the wrong corridor and if they had competed with NX on a key route eg Bristol to London they would have fared better?

It suffered from the usual FirstGroup disease of enthusiastic launching before the brand was diluted with services markedly different from the launch route (there was a London-Scotland service too) and like most FirstGroup ideas it died quietly with a whimper......

A real shame as the concept was sound and could have been really good.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It suffered from the usual FirstGroup disease of enthusiastic launching before the brand was diluted with services markedly different from the launch route (there was a London-Scotland service too) and like most FirstGroup ideas it died quietly with a whimper......

A real shame as the concept was sound and could have been really good.

It is interesting that Megabus made the "low cost airline style coaching" concept stick when two other operations (First Greyhound and Easybus) failed, and Flix isn't looking *that* good. Maybe it's just limited room in the market for too many operators? At the moment Flix is probably enjoying rail going through a bad period causing extra coach demand.

 

[M803UYA]

It is interesting that Megabus made the "low cost airline style coaching" concept stick when two other operations (First Greyhound and Easybus) failed, and Flix isn't looking *that* good. Maybe it's just limited room in the market for too many operators? At the moment Flix is probably enjoying rail going through a bad period causing extra coach demand.

First put of a lot of money into it - the Irizar PB coaches used came off National Express diagrams had an interior refurb at 5 years old and were downseated. The operation was led by Alex Warner who was recruited from the railways - when First started altering what the brand was about he left his role which explains how it died with a whimper. Whoever took it on after him clearly didn't feel as invested in the project!

 

[Bletchleyite]

First put of a lot of money into it - the Irizar PB coaches used came off National Express diagrams had an interior refurb at 5 years old and were downseated. The operation was led by Alex Warner who was recruited from the railways - when First started altering what the brand was about he left his role which explains how it died with a whimper. Whoever took it on after him clearly didn't feel as invested in the project!

While they haven't downseated, it's interesting that NatEx seems to have slotted itself into the "quality" part of the market First attempted to enter (newer NatEx coaches really have very nice interiors) and left Flix and Megabus to squabble over the bottom end of the market. So maybe there was something in it?

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

We have discussed this before.

I'd argue that the Bristol to Swansea wasn't overly ambitious. It essentially replaced the existing Shuttle 100 in any case so it had an existing customer base, and the coach did compare well on end to end times between Swansea and Cardiff. The problem with Greyhound was thus

1. You have a fixed cost for a vehicle/driver so it needed to be making about 500 quid a day in 2009. So for a National Express coach doing two round trips might be a potential 196 or 220 seats available for sale (49 or 55 seater). A Greyhound coach at 41 seats was a maximum of 164 seats per day.
2. The coach market is predominantly popular with cost-conscious types i.e. socio-economic D/E, students, pensioners. They are prepared to spend slightly more on NX for convenience (pick up location, sales support, choice of departures, etc) and let Megabus/Flixbus have the real bargain basement travel market. Greyhound pitched added value (increased price) but had 20% fewer seats in which to recoup that
3. Fewer people are prepared to spend the extra (as price point is more important); it might also be argued that train companies are better at selling/marketing off peak capacity so also, the ability to charge a price premium is limited as you then start to approach rail prices anyway (for a faster product)

I know people on this forum may well say "oh, I'd pay more for increased legroom" but in the main, that doesn't hold for the coach market where price is THE key factor

 

[Simon75]

There was one that went London to Portsmouth (Southsea), which included ticketing including hovercraft to the Isle of Wight ( Ryde)

 

[F Great Eastern]

We have discussed this before.

I'd argue that the Bristol to Swansea wasn't overly ambitious. It essentially replaced the existing Shuttle 100 in any case so it had an existing customer base, and the coach did compare well on end to end times between Swansea and Cardiff. The problem with Greyhound was thus

1. You have a fixed cost for a vehicle/driver so it needed to be making about 500 quid a day in 2009. So for a National Express coach doing two round trips might be a potential 196 or 220 seats available for sale (49 or 55 seater). A Greyhound coach at 41 seats was a maximum of 164 seats per day.
2. The coach market is predominantly popular with cost-conscious types i.e. socio-economic D/E, students, pensioners. They are prepared to spend slightly more on NX for convenience (pick up location, sales support, choice of departures, etc) and let Megabus/Flixbus have the real bargain basement travel market. Greyhound pitched added value (increased price) but had 20% fewer seats in which to recoup that
3. Fewer people are prepared to spend the extra (as price point is more important); it might also be argued that train companies are better at selling/marketing off peak capacity so also, the ability to charge a price premium is limited as you then start to approach rail prices anyway (for a faster product)

I know people on this forum may well say "oh, I'd pay more for increased legroom" but in the main, that doesn't hold for the coach market where price is THE key factor

Personally I think that they pushed it too far in terms of the seating as has been said. I'm not entirely sure that their idea was wrong per se to go for a more premium market, they literally built a whole business on that kind of market with Aircoach in Ireland and got many people out of their cars who would simply not have took another bus or coach service. But I never really saw any attempt by Greyhound to try and market their services to non public transport users.

Also as has been said, nobody needed the kind of legroom that those coaches had. I don't know who signed off on it but it simply didn't add up. If they were going for a more premium market, I'd have personally gone for a 45 seat layout myself instead of 41 with an extra row in. It would still be premium in terms of legroom over the competition, but make more economic sense. I travelled on those coaches and the legroom was overkill even for someone really tall like me.

Also the service was barely visible from the Cardiff end of the Cardiff to Swansea service. Even at the stop it wasn't promoted. I guess probably that may not have been within First's control, but reguarly for a while that service often had Ex National Express Panthers on it, complete with drivers with National Express uniform and branding on the inside which was really confusing. When a plain white bus starts turning up early at a bus stop at your stop with staff wearing uniform of a rival, it starts to look like a bus war! It did nothing to promote the brand.

 

[paul1609]

There was one that went London to Portsmouth (Southsea), which included ticketing including hovercraft to the Isle of Wight ( Ryde)

There still are through National Express tickets via the Hovercraft https://www.hovertravel.co.uk/connections/national-express/

 

[ian1944]

I seem to recall a Glasgow-London service with economical pricing (£20 return?).

 

[Lewlew]

The pick up points in Southampton were a bit odd and out of the way. Starting down near Town Quay/Platform Road and from memory, going nowhere near the coach, train station or high street. I used it once when it had been running for a bit and there were less than 10 people on it.

 

[James H]

I used it a couple of times to and from Bournemouth

With just a handful of passengers the experience was very good but obviously hopeless from a business perspective

 

[Bletchleyite]

They may well have made a poor choice of route, too. If I was setting up a brand new intercity coach service, London to Manchester would without doubt be my first route. Easybus made the same error - Milton Keynes to London was never going to be a great coach market with a frequent and affordable train service. Manchester has a frequent train service but it's not very affordable.

 

[mb88]

I seem to recall a Glasgow-London service with economical pricing (£20 return?).

Yes it was operated from Cumbernauld depot. I was working there at the time and recall seeing Plaxton Panther coaches in the Greyhound livery parked there.

 

[route101]

Yes it was operated from Cumbernauld depot. I was working there at the time and recall seeing Plaxton Panther coaches in the Greyhound livery parked there.

Yes, I used the service from Glasgow. Same coaches that were used on some of the express services. I recall we had a 45 minute break at Charnock Richard services. Was this route born from the Silver Fox Glasgow - East Kilbride - London coach service?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Yes it was operated from Cumbernauld depot. I was working there at the time and recall seeing Plaxton Panther coaches in the Greyhound livery parked there.

Wasn't that one just a rebrand of an existing First service?

 

[JonathanH]

They may well have made a poor choice of route, too. If I was setting up a brand new intercity coach service, London to Manchester would without doubt be my first route. Easybus made the same error - Milton Keynes to London was never going to be a great coach market with a frequent and affordable train service. Manchester has a frequent train service but it's not very affordable.

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.

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

 

[Flying Snail]

Wasn't that one just a rebrand of an existing First service?

The Glasgow - London was an existing route from a small operator (Silver Choice) that First bought out and managed to kill off after rebranding as Greyhound.

 

[Bletchleyite]

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.

I think this is interesting in its own right so have pulled it out as a separate thread: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/best-uk-coaching-market.243431/

 

[Carlisle]

There was one that went London to Portsmouth (Southsea), which included ticketing including hovercraft to the Isle of Wight ( Ryde)

Yes, I think there was hope the opening of Hindhead Tunnel would reduce journey times a bit along the A3 & potentially increase the coaches market share in that region.

 

[Deerfold]

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.

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

Leeds to London seems to be a great coach market. Looking at next Saturday, the three big coach companies have over 30 departures.

I only tend to get the coach on that route at times that are inconvenient for rail (very early or very late) but have been on some very heavily loaded coaches.