Largest bus operators in the UK.

[busestrains]

What are currently the largest bus operators in the UK and in what order?

Abellio, Arriva, Comfort Delgro, First, Go Ahead, Kelsian, National Express, RATP, Rotala, Stagecoach, Transdev, Wellglade, would be the top twelve i would presume but in what order i am not sure.

Arriva, First, Go Ahead, Stagecoach, are obviously the largest top four but even then i am not sure what the order is especially with so many sales and acquisitions recently.

Also how is it measured as to what is the largest bus operator? What is the best thing to use to measure this?

Most amount of depots? Most amount of drivers? Most amount of staff? Most amount of routes? Most amount of vehicles? Most amount of counties covered? Most amount of profit made? Something else instead?

I would be very interested to hear your thoughts on what are the largest bus operators currently and in what order?

 

[route101]

First Glasgow, biggest First operation?

 

[WibbleWobble]

McGills group?

 

[Flying Snail]

Ignoring NI as usual I see.

 

[150249]

From what I've seen, stagecoach Manchester is rather large

 

[WizCastro197]

Ignoring NI as usual I see.

Translink through Ulsterbus and Metro? I am not very sure as I haven't really been to NI before and have just conducted a quick google.

Translink provides most public transport services in Northern Ireland through its subsidiary companies - Metro in Belfast and Ulsterbus across the country.

Bus public transport in Northern Ireland | nibusinessinfo.co.uk

A Commercial Bus Service Permit system has replaced the old bus route licensing element of the Road Service licence.

www.nibusinessinfo.co.uk

 

[heathrowrail]

Translink through Ulsterbus and Metro? I am not very sure as I haven't really been to NI before and have just conducted a quick google.

Bus public transport in Northern Ireland | nibusinessinfo.co.uk

A Commercial Bus Service Permit system has replaced the old bus route licensing element of the Road Service licence.

www.nibusinessinfo.co.uk

Translink is pretty big but probably no bigger than Stagecoach Manchester. Biggest way to find out would be to go by fleet size.

 

[GusB]

Ignoring NI as usual I see.

I don't think it's a case of Northern Ireland being ignored. Most forum members who visit this section are in Great Britain, so Translink isn't necessarily going to be on anyone's radar. The thread title does include the words "in the UK", so NI services aren't being deliberately excluded.

I agree that there isn't much discussion about NI services and I'd like to see more, but if people aren't posting about it, it won't get the necessary exposure.

 

[Roger1973]

Stagecoach website has this chart of 'market share' - not sure just how up to date it is, or how they measure it.

It also says 'UK' but quite possibly does not include N Ireland, and it splits London and non London.

Not sure if other groups do similar.

I'd either count fleet size, number of passenger journeys made, or financial turnover. High turnover doesn't always mean high profit or vice versa. Number of routes is a red herring - some community transport operators have a lot of routes, but only have one or two buses, and many of their routes run something like the second tuesday of each month.

DfT's bus statistics are here - not sure if they will have what you want.

And also depends if by 'operator' you mean group (as in Stagecoach) or operating company (and then whether you define that by brand name, or PSV operator's licence) and by bus you just mean local bus market, or coaches as well - National Express for example have a few subsidiaries who run coaches but few if any local bus services.

 

[Simon75]

I don't think it's a case of Northern Ireland being ignored. Most forum members who visit this section are in Great Britain, so Translink isn't necessarily going to be on anyone's radar. The thread title does include the words "in the UK", so NI services aren't being deliberately excluded.

I agree that there isn't much discussion about NI services and I'd like to see more, but if people aren't posting about it, it won't get the necessary exposure.

Totally agree, it more the case that most members are on the mainland, and probably have not been to Northern Ireland (NI), or know much about services
There was a (for example) a thread ages ago on how different buses buses are run in NI to the mainland

 

[Glasgowbusguy]

McGill group would be top 10 with over 1500 buses authorised on their operating licences.

 

[Stan Drews]

McGill group would be top 10 with over 1500 buses authorised on their operating licences.

The current Peak Vehicle Requirement is less than a third of that figure, so a good illustration of how different figures can skew the answer somewhat!

 

[Ayman Ilham]

From what I've seen, stagecoach Manchester is rather large

Definitely a contender; given the amount of independent operators they've taken over around Greater Manchester, it's as if they were trying to achieve a monopoly across the city region, which they pretty much got in South Manchester.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 19 Dec 2022 ==

Translink is pretty big but probably no bigger than Stagecoach Manchester. Biggest way to find out would be to go by fleet size.

Crazy how a city-specific operator can potentially be larger than one that covers an entire country! We could go by fleet size, but what about overall network coverage? That'd be an interesting one, albeit difficult to quantify (area around the routes they operate): Translink across all of NI, TrawsCymru across all of Wales, Transdev across Lancashire and Yorkshire, Stagecoach in North or East Scotland are all contenders for that.

 

[johncrossley]

Crazy how a city-specific operator can potentially be larger than one that covers an entire country!

Not that crazy considering that country only has about 1.9 million inhabitants. You get more buses per person in an urban area than in a largely rural one.

 

[Ayman Ilham]

Not that crazy considering that country only has about 1.9 million inhabitants. You get more buses per person in an urban area than in a largely rural one.

Fair enough, so its entire population is actually smaller than Greater Manchester (2.7 million) then, that makes sense; must be the same for the larger Wales which itself is 2-million-something. Meanwhile, London would trump all the other major cities of Britain (Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Bristol, Newcastle, Cardiff, Southampton, etc.) COMBINED. Population density makes some WILD differences.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Fair enough, so its entire population is actually smaller than Greater Manchester (2.7 million) then, that makes sense; must be the same for the larger Wales which itself is 2-million-something. Meanwhile, London would trump all the other major cities of Britain (Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Bristol, Newcastle, Cardiff, Southampton, etc.) COMBINED. Population density makes some WILD differences.

Wales is about 3.2m and even then... 6400 people per square mile in Cardiff, whilst in Powys, it is 70 people per square mile

 

[Mwanesh]

You can use the operator search function it gives a rough idea on Fleet size. Stagecoach Manchester is over 800 buses

 

[BVW]

Operator search function where exactly?

 

[Mwanesh]

Type in operator search in your browser. It will come up with a Gov UK page.Operator and vehicle search will be under it. Click on that, you will get a start now. You choose business name then click it will come up with valid and surrendered licences

 

[GusB]

Rather than providing instructions on how to use a web browser, it's more helpful to actually provide the link!

Find lorry or bus operators

Find lorry and bus operators by name, address or licence number

www.gov.uk

 

[Andyh82]

I wouldn’t use the number of licences they have, as many of the major operators will have shrunk in size over the years and won’t operate anywhere near as many buses as the licenses they have

Actual fleet size is probably more accurate, the fleetlists on BusTimes would give you a good estimate

 

[SCH117X]

The website http://www.buszone.co.uk/UK.html lists operators with number of vehicles but seems to a few years out of date as, for example, their is no mention of Go-Aheads GoNorth West or of Transdev Blazefield acquiring Yorkshire Tiger (as Team Pennine) while Yellow Buses are extant and owned by RATP Dev.
it gives Stagecoach as approx 8100, First approx 7500, Arriva approx 6300, Go-Ahead approx 4000, National Express approx 1900, RATP Dev approx 1000, Transdev Blazefield 580, Wellglade 470.