New coach network proposal

[AndrewE]

Interesting article, https://www.wearepossible.org/latest-news/new-coach-network

Our new report sets out a vision for reinvestment in coaches across the UK, including a proposal for a new network of coach routes for the north of England.
This will cut private car use while increasing connectivity and lessening social exclusion among the country’s most badly affected residents.
Despite this being a relatively quick, easy and cheap way of cutting transport emissions while bringing a range of social and economic co-benefits to the north of England, not a single manifesto from any of the main parties contesting the 2024 general election makes reference to coaches in their transport policies.
Over three million people in the north of England live in areas characterised by transport related social exclusion (TRSE), according to Transport for the North.
This means not being able to access key services and opportunities as needed due to poor public transport, whether due to limited coverage, unreliability or cost, and unfavourable conditions for active travel.
This exclusion disproportionately affects older, young and people with disabilities, those on low incomes, with caring responsibilities or in insecure work, especially those needing to travel different routes and times to main commuting flows.
Successive governments have promised the Earth to the people of the north of England, only to let economic inequality, connectivity and social isolation get worse and worse and worse.

We’ve dragged our feet for long enough. We’re calling on the next government to deliver a connectivity revolution for the north with an extensive luxury coach and bus network, linking everyone from the cities of Scotland to the capitals of mainland Europe.

This should be complemented with a commitment to rolling out 300 miles of bus lanes and 30 interchanges on England’s Strategic Road Network by 2030.

Coaches will cut carbon and increase connectivity, but most importantly - we can do this cheaply and quickly.

It makes the points that new coach provision is quick and relatively easy and cheap (presumably compared with rail upgrades!) Includes Preston to Skipton, Cairnryan to Carlisle, Workington-Penrith-Darlington etc. I am surprised to see Manchester - Leeds and replication of the ECML (including sleepers!) but they say it is to address the exclusion caused by rail prices.
All far too sensible to be put into action in the UK, of course!

 

[A0]

Interesting article, https://www.wearepossible.org/latest-news/new-coach-network

It makes the points that new coach provision is quick and relatively easy and cheap (presumably compared with rail upgrades!) Includes Preston to Skipton, Cairnryan to Carlisle, Workington-Penrith-Darlington etc. I am surprised to see Manchester - Leeds and replication of the ECML (including sleepers!) but they say it is to address the exclusion caused by rail prices.
All far too sensible to be put into action in the UK, of course!

Well, firstly lets look at who the article is by - it's a bunch of broadly left wing campaigners, so should be approached with due caution. It's not an industry led or even a transport led body.

That's said, let's unpick those examples you cite which you seem to think are "sensible" but in reality they probably aren't.

Starting with Cairnryan - the "attraction" of Cairnryan is 12 ferries a day to Belfast or Larne. There is already a Scottish Citylink service to Ayr and Glasgow running 5 times a day as well as local buses running to Ayr and Stranraer. Is there really huge demand from Carlisle to get to Cairnryan ? Probably not - it's about 2.5 hours by car, so a coach journey would be 3 hours. Compare that to the current train links from Carlisle which would get you to an airport if you were trying to get to the Island of Ireland - Manchester Airport is about 2h 15 mins by direct train and the stop for the express bus is a 2 minute walk away which takes 15 mins and runs every 10 mins.

So the Carlisle - Cairnryan would run through open countryside, serving a few hamlets and offer little utility.

Now lets look at Preston - Skipton. Again, first question is there really huge demand for that journey ? Probably not. A direct coach would probably be about 90 mins journey time. However there is already a Skipton - Burnley express coach which takes 1 h 10 mins, so if there really is demand for this flow, easier to extend that onto Burnley Manchester Road and offer through ticketing with the train. That could be achieved now without the need to run another coach route which would probably run empty for most of its journey.

Workington - Penrith - Darlington - OK, that's almost 100 miles which is quite a long distance, not exactly a daily commute. There is demand between Workington and Penrith - the fact Stagecoach already run a half hourly service between the two between 7am and 7pm and with journeys from 5 am through to 9pm shows that. However, east of Penrith until you reach Barnard Castle, the demand is almost non-existant. If you've ever driven the A66 from Scotch Corner to Penrith, you can see that. None of the intermediate places are particularly big (Appleby 3,000, Brough 800, Barnard Castle 5,500) - apart from those you're looking at hamlets and farms, so no intermediate traffic. Barnard Castle does have a regular bus service to Darlington.

Basically the report is little more than the standard crayonista fare we see from the likes of SELRAP (Skipton - Colne rail) except this is suggesting coaches, yet doesn't seem to have actually understood what problem they are trying to resolve. I can only assume none of the writers have ever travelled across the Pennines on the A66 because if they had they would realise there really is nothing to serve and running a coach from Workington to Darlington will do precisely nothing about deprivation or offer better job opportunities. If "social mobility" is their aim, then there are 1001 ways that could be better achieved than running empty coaches through open countryside.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 28 Jun 2024 ==

Starting with Cairnryan - the "attraction" of Cairnryan is 12 ferries a day to Belfast or Larne. There is already a Scottish Citylink service to Ayr and Glasgow running 5 times a day as well as local buses running to Ayr and Stranraer. Is there really huge demand from Carlisle to get to Cairnryan ? Probably not - it's about 2.5 hours by car, so a coach journey would be 3 hours. Compare that to the current train links from Carlisle which would get you to an airport if you were trying to get to the Island of Ireland - Manchester Airport is about 2h 15 mins by direct train and the stop for the express bus is a 2 minute walk away which takes 15 mins and runs every 10 mins.

Edit - on the bit in bold, I meant to put

Manchester Airport is about 2h 15 mins by direct train and Glasgow Central is 1h 15m - 1h30m away where the stop for the express bus is a 2 minute walk away which takes 15 mins and runs every 10 mins to Glasgow Airport.

 

[markymark2000]

Starting with Cairnryan - the "attraction" of Cairnryan is 12 ferries a day to Belfast or Larne. There is already a Scottish Citylink service to Ayr and Glasgow running 5 times a day as well as local buses running to Ayr and Stranraer. Is there really huge demand from Carlisle to get to Cairnryan ? Probably not - it's about 2.5 hours by car, so a coach journey would be 3 hours. Compare that to the current train links from Carlisle which would get you to an airport if you were trying to get to the Island of Ireland - Manchester Airport is about 2h 15 mins by direct train and the stop for the express bus is a 2 minute walk away which takes 15 mins and runs every 10 mins.

The proposal in their report is a London to Cairnryan overnight coach service for people to catch the ferry. It's not just a Cairnryan-Carlisle link!.
Sadly the options to get to ferry ports for travel to Ireland are pretty poor from the majority of the country. Pembroke has no public transport. Holyhead has only the trains, and these can be patchy sometimes thanks to Avantis lack of service. Cairnryan has no rail links, the only viable way to get here is trains to Ayr then use the RailSail coach to the port (though this is only available for 1 sailing per day), or get yourself to Glasgow and use Citylink to the port (or get the Hannon coach straight over to Belfast but again this only goes from Glasgow). A link which doesn't involve going via Glasgow would be quite good.


While I doubt the report above has the best solutions, I think we do definitely need a better coach network in the UK. Far too many gaps and far too much focus on a few corridors. Scotland has such a vast coach network and to have something like that replicated in England and Wales would be excellent.

 

[Snex]

The proposal in their report is a London to Cairnryan overnight coach service for people to catch the ferry. It's not just a Cairnryan-Carlisle link!.
Sadly the options to get to ferry ports for travel to Ireland are pretty poor from the majority of the country. Pembroke has no public transport. Holyhead has only the trains, and these can be patchy sometimes thanks to Avantis lack of service. Cairnryan has no rail links, the only viable way to get here is trains to Ayr then use the RailSail coach to the port (though this is only available for 1 sailing per day), or get yourself to Glasgow and use Citylink to the port (or get the Hannon coach straight over to Belfast but again this only goes from Glasgow). A link which doesn't involve going via Glasgow would be quite good.


While I doubt the report above has the best solutions, I think we do definitely need a better coach network in the UK. Far too many gaps and far too much focus on a few corridors. Scotland has such a vast coach network and to have something like that replicated in England and Wales would be excellent.

Can't comment on other areas of the country but to be fair the North East / Yorkshire has a similar network to Scotland has in coaches, we just have a serious problem where there's too many conventional routes which probably should be coach routes instead.

The likes of the X14/X15/X18, Newcastle to Thropton/Berwick, 685 Newcastle to Carlisle, X10 Newcastle to Middlesbrough and X93 Middlesbrough to Scarborough being the sort of routes I'm talking about. The Coastliner services from Scarborough / Whitby to York are another two which are pretty much the same. Obviously there's the argument of where you draw the line between the difference in them.

They're no different to the likes of the 919 from Inverness to Fort William, just that there's no big settlements on the route.

 

[renegademaster]

We need to be more imaginative. Why should our coach network be limited to 60mph. We could get HS2 done for a fraction of the cost

 

[gc4946]

Can't comment on other areas of the country but to be fair the North East / Yorkshire has a similar network to Scotland has in coaches, we just have a serious problem where there's too many conventional routes which probably should be coach routes instead.

The likes of the X14/X15/X18, Newcastle to Thropton/Berwick, 685 Newcastle to Carlisle, X10 Newcastle to Middlesbrough and X93 Middlesbrough to Scarborough being the sort of routes I'm talking about. The Coastliner services from Scarborough / Whitby to York are another two which are pretty much the same. Obviously there's the argument of where you draw the line between the difference in them.

They're no different to the likes of the 919 from Inverness to Fort William, just that there's no big settlements on the route.

Stagecoach operations of the X4 Northampton-Peterborough, X5 Oxford-Bedford (originally a through Oxford-Cambridge service), X6 Northampton-Milton Keynes and X7 Northampton-Leicester arguably could fall into the same category.
Last year I travelled on the X5, X6 and X7 and think they all should be upgraded to express coach standard. In particular, the X4, X5 and X7 services fill gaps in the rail network.

 

[A0]

The proposal in their report is a London to Cairnryan overnight coach service for people to catch the ferry. It's not just a Cairnryan-Carlisle link!.

I saw that - the suggestion is for "sleeper" coaches, which restricts their use and reduces capacity. It would be hugely costly and massively loss making.

Sadly the options to get to ferry ports for travel to Ireland are pretty poor from the majority of the country. Pembroke has no public transport. Holyhead has only the trains, and these can be patchy sometimes thanks to Avantis lack of service. Cairnryan has no rail links, the only viable way to get here is trains to Ayr then use the RailSail coach to the port (though this is only available for 1 sailing per day), or get yourself to Glasgow and use Citylink to the port (or get the Hannon coach straight over to Belfast but again this only goes from Glasgow).

The numbers using ferries by fopt is very low and ferry crossings aren't cheap, that's before you factor getting to the port. It's why the budget airlines have done so well, across Easyjet and Ryanair there are regular flights from pretty much all the regional airports to Dublin and Belfast and at lower cost than train / coach / ferry.

A link which doesn't involve going via Glasgow would be quite good.

You mean like the existing ferry from Liverpool ? (Which I notice you didn't mention,).

While I doubt the report above has the best solutions, I think we do definitely need a better coach network in the UK. Far too many gaps and far too much focus on a few corridors. Scotland has such a vast coach network and to have something like that replicated in England and Wales would be excellent.

But it's not that brilliant - Citylink operate 30 routes of varying frequencies. National Express operates ten times that, that's before you then count Megabus, Flix and various "express bus" services such as the Green Line 757. So I'd contest Scotland has a "vast" network as the statistics don't support your claim.

Stagecoach operations of the X4 Northampton-Peterborough, X5 Oxford-Bedford (originally a through Oxford-Cambridge service), X6 Northampton-Milton Keynes and X7 Northampton-Leicester arguably could fall into the same category.
Last year I travelled on the X5, X6 and X7 and think they all should be upgraded to express coach standard. In particullar, the X4, X5 and X7 services fill gaps in the rail network.

The problem with that, is the same issue the old London Country Green Line network had which was coach vehicles being unsuited to regular stopping services because they are slow to load / unload which then destroys the timekeeping. The X7's a case in point as it serves several points in Northampton and then is the main bus through Brixworth so has to serve all points there.

Buses with coach seating i.e. express buses are the best solution offering better comfort without the drawbacks of slow loading.

 

[A0]

We need to be more imaginative. Why should our coach network be limited to 60mph. We could get HS2 done for a fraction of the cost

Safety mainly and also aligning with mainland Europe where the usual motorway speed limit for coaches is 100 km/h = 62 mph.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Stagecoach operations of the X4 Northampton-Peterborough, X5 Oxford-Bedford (originally a through Oxford-Cambridge service), X6 Northampton-Milton Keynes and X7 Northampton-Leicester arguably could fall into the same category.
Last year I travelled on the X5, X6 and X7 and think they all should be upgraded to express coach standard. In particular, the X4, X5 and X7 services fill gaps in the rail network.

The X5 was a coach but the coaches were flogged off for the Bristol express service (forget which one) and not replaced, possibly because the route in its current form may not have long to live if East West Rail kills it. It's grim on a bus, I used to ride it for pleasure but now I won't even use it for a purpose, it's well over an hour being juddered and jolted all over the place on an uncomfortable seat.

It does seem this sort of thing is done better in Scotland. Though even the Transdev Yorkshire and Lancashire services have coach style seats at least, these do suffer the same problem - a vehicle built as a short distance bus mostly not intending to exceed 30mph is never going to be great for a faster long trip on undulating rural roads, even if you do put nice seats in it (and the X5 ones don't even have nice seats).

 

[renegademaster]

Safety mainly and also aligning with mainland Europe where the usual motorway speed limit for coaches is 100 km/h = 62 mph.

My post wasn't serious, watch the attached video

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 29 Jun 2024 ==

hour being juddered and jolted all over the place on an uncomfortable seat.

Sounds like LNER

 

[Snex]

Buses with coach seating i.e. express buses are the best solution offering better comfort without the drawbacks of slow loading.

You're probably right, the big problem is that bus doesn't exist hence why there's stuff like B5TL's, Streetdecks and Enviro 400's doing the work and they're not suited for the work at all.

The market is desperate for something to the equivilant of a Volvo Olympian which used to do this work without issue, not 5/6 litre engines screaming with a turbo. Shoving some nicer seats inside a city bus doesn't suddenly make it not a city bus as some seem to think it does.

 

[Tetchytyke]

The likes of the X14/X15/X18, Newcastle to Thropton/Berwick, 685 Newcastle to Carlisle, X10 Newcastle to Middlesbrough and X93 Middlesbrough to Scarborough being the sort of routes I'm talking about. The Coastliner services from Scarborough / Whitby to York are another two which are pretty much the same. Obviously there's the argument of where you draw the line between the difference in them.

In its previous guise the X14/15 and X93 used to have some coaches on it, and the 685 was at one point run entirely by coaches. But they weren’t low floor and they weren’t accessible and that was pretty much that.

The problem is that you don’t have the products on the market that provide the low floor access and the required capacity and the required manoeuvrability. Go tried using cascaded ex-Oxford Elite i coaches on the X10 and it was a disaster. The Panther LE is probably the only product on the market that meets the requirements, and even that doesn’t match the capacity of an E400- although it would be a marked improvement on the clapped out E300s that Stagecoach Newcastle put out on the 685.

 

[A0]

You're probably right, the big problem is that bus doesn't exist hence why there's stuff like B5TL's, Streetdecks and Enviro 400's doing the work and they're not suited for the work at all.

The market is desperate for something to the equivilant of a Volvo Olympian which used to do this work without issue, not 5/6 litre engines screaming with a turbo. Shoving some nicer seats inside a city bus doesn't suddenly make it not a city bus as some seem to think it does.

The market isn't "desperate" for such a vehicle at all. All the manufacturers regularly speak to the operators about their vehicle requirements and if Stagecoach, First, Go Ahead or National Express were saying that then at least one of the manufacturers would be offering it.

You're confusing what you as an enthusiast first and passenger second want, not what the operators know what they need.

 

[Ding Ding]

As soon as you see the words " cut private car use " you know this is part of the WEF agenda, that is being implemented by governments worldwide. If anyone on this forum thinks that there is a lack of coach provision between the major cities in this country, then in my opinion, they shouldn't be out on their own. In the central belt of Scotland for instance, we have, Scottish Citylink, who also operate Mega Bus, Flix, National Express, Ember. These services run 7 days a week, some every 15 mins between the major cities. I see these services running everyday, and wonder how they can all be making money, as the vast majority out with peak periods are running mostly empty.
The main reason the attempt to get people out of cars and on to buses and coaches fails, is the vast majority cherish their private space and the ability to go door to door, carry shopping etc.
In my opinion, there is more than enough coach provision in this country along with rail and air.

 

[computerSaysNo]

But it's not that brilliant - Citylink operate 30 routes of varying frequencies. National Express operates ten times that, that's before you then count Megabus, Flix and various "express bus" services such as the Green Line 757. So I'd contest Scotland has a "vast" network as the statistics don't support your claim.

I highly doubt National Express operates 300 routes, and even if it did, Scotland doesn't need that many as it is much smaller and less densely populated than England.

As far as passengers are concerned, Citylink and Megabus are basically the same entity in Scotland (that is, most of the journeys on the Megabus website are actually operated by a Citylink coach and Citylink driver), so you should consider both their networks as one. In the East of Scotland the majority of routes are every hour or better, and run the same timetable 7 days a week (examples off the top of my head:

• Glasgow - (express to) Perth - (express to) Dundee - Aberdeen
• Glasgow - Perth via Stirling and Dunblane - Dundee
• Edinburgh - Dundee - Aberdeen
• Edinburgh - Stirling
• Edinburgh - Perth - Inverness
• Glasgow - Perth - Inverness
• Edinburgh - Livingston - Airdrie - Glasgow
• Edinburgh - Glasgow, which is every 15 minutes during the day and runs 24/7.
• Edinburgh Airport - Glasgow

The West Coast timetables are less frequent as there is less population but there are still regular services:

• Glasgow - Campbeltown
• Glasgow - Oban
• Glasgow - Fort William - Skye
• Oban - Fort William
• Fort William - Inverness
• Skye - Inverness
• Ullapool - Inverness

There are further cross-country services which run once a day or during summer only:

• Edinburgh - Perth - Fort William
• Edinburgh - Stirling - Oban
• Edinburgh - Perth - (via all the villages to) Inverness

All of the above exclusively and reliably use coaches; I'm not aware of a single instance of any of the above services ever using a non-coach vehicle.

In addition to all of the above, Stagecoach have a limited-stop network which are planned to use coaches (subject to availability):

• Edinburgh - Dunfermline
• Edinburgh - (via most of the villages to) Perth
• Edinburgh - Glenrothes - Dundee or St Andrews
• Edinburgh - (fast to) Kirkcaldy - St Andrews
• Glasgow - Dunfermline - Kirkcaldy
• Glasgow - Dunfermline - Glenrothes - St Andrews
• Dundee - Aberdeen
• Inverness - Wick

So yes, I'd say there's a pretty extensive network.

 

[stuu]

As soon as you see the words " cut private car use " you know this is part of the WEF agenda, that is being implemented by governments worldwide.

Stop reading/watching that nonsense. It's really bad for you

 

[Tayway]

There's also a few in the south west – Stagecoach's routes from Glasgow to Dumfries, Ayr and Kilmarnock are all usually coach operated.

 

[A0]

I highly doubt National Express operates 300 routes,

Your doubt is highly misplaced:

National Express Timetables Route List

timetables.nationalexpress.com

Search all, and......

642 services found

And that's before you count the non National Express coaches such as Megabus, Flix or express services operated by First, Go Ahead, Stagecoach et al.

even if it did, Scotland doesn't need that many as it is much smaller and less densely populated than England.

Scotland isn't 10 times smaller than England & Wales.

 

[padbus]

You're probably right, the big problem is that bus doesn't exist hence why there's stuff like B5TL's, Streetdecks and Enviro 400's doing the work and they're not suited for the work at all.

The market is desperate for something to the equivilant of a Volvo Olympian which used to do this work without issue, not 5/6 litre engines screaming with a turbo. Shoving some nicer seats inside a city bus doesn't suddenly make it not a city bus as some seem to think it does.

What about the Plaxton Panorama?

 

[Tetchytyke]

you know this is part of the WEF agenda

Step away from the Russell Brand YouTube channel, seriously!

What about the Plaxton Panorama?

It’s 3m too long for a lot of operators, same issue Go North East had with the Elite i on the X10.

 

[GusB]

As soon as you see the words " cut private car use " you know this is part of the WEF agenda, that is being implemented by governments worldwide.

The what agenda? Please refrain from using acronyms and abbreviations without including a suitable definition.

If anyone on this forum thinks that there is a lack of coach provision between the major cities in this country, then in my opinion, they shouldn't be out on their own. In the central belt of Scotland for instance, we have, Scottish Citylink, who also operate Mega Bus, Flix, National Express, Ember.

This is incorrect. Citylink does not operate Flixbus, National Express or Ember.

 

[stevieinselby]

Can't comment on other areas of the country but to be fair the North East / Yorkshire has a similar network to Scotland has in coaches, we just have a serious problem where there's too many conventional routes which probably should be coach routes instead.

The likes of the X14/X15/X18, Newcastle to Thropton/Berwick, 685 Newcastle to Carlisle, X10 Newcastle to Middlesbrough and X93 Middlesbrough to Scarborough being the sort of routes I'm talking about. The Coastliner services from Scarborough / Whitby to York are another two which are pretty much the same. Obviously there's the argument of where you draw the line between the difference in them.

They're no different to the likes of the 919 from Inverness to Fort William, just that there's no big settlements on the route.

The fact that there are no significant settlements between Inverness and Fort William is the difference.
The Coastliner route from Leeds to Whitby has over 150 stops. That includes main town/city centre stops, suburban stops on the outskirts of those towns and cities, villages along the route, visitor attractions and minor stops serving nothing in particular. On a typical journey, a bus could easily call at a third of the stops. So what do you do?

1. Run the same calling pattern but with coaches instead of buses?
2. Cut out all stops except the main town and city centres?
3. Duplicate the route with buses calling at all stops and express coaches?

Option 1 - reduces capacity, reduces accessibility, increases dwell times. No reduction in journey time, potentially a bit more comfortable but how many more passengers will that attract?
Option 2 - will leave plenty of villages or suburbs without any public transport, as Coastliner provides the only bus route to them.
Option 3 - very unlikely to be cost-effective, the number of additional passengers who would be attracted by the express coach service between main towns won't cover the costs of duplicating the service.

Also remember that limited stop services may be exempt from ENCTS, which means they will be unattractive to the pensioners who currently make up a significant proportion of passengers (especially if the £2 cap ends and fares go back up to their previous level).

 

[route101]

I am surprised there hasn't been a a turn up and go service like the 900 between Liverpool and Leeds via Manchester.

 

[Snex]

The fact that there are no significant settlements between Inverness and Fort William is the difference.
The Coastliner route from Leeds to Whitby has over 150 stops. That includes main town/city centre stops, suburban stops on the outskirts of those towns and cities, villages along the route, visitor attractions and minor stops serving nothing in particular. On a typical journey, a bus could easily call at a third of the stops. So what do you do?

1. Run the same calling pattern but with coaches instead of buses?
2. Cut out all stops except the main town and city centres?
3. Duplicate the route with buses calling at all stops and express coaches?

Option 1 - reduces capacity, reduces accessibility, increases dwell times. No reduction in journey time, potentially a bit more comfortable but how many more passengers will that attract?
Option 2 - will leave plenty of villages or suburbs without any public transport, as Coastliner provides the only bus route to them.
Option 3 - very unlikely to be cost-effective, the number of additional passengers who would be attracted by the express coach service between main towns won't cover the costs of duplicating the service.

Also remember that limited stop services may be exempt from ENCTS, which means they will be unattractive to the pensioners who currently make up a significant proportion of passengers (especially if the £2 cap ends and fares go back up to their previous level).

To be fair you probably should have aswell:

4. Run the route with conventional buses stopping at every bus stop on the way.

Option 4 - most cost effective for the operator, worst for long distance passengers due to extended travel time due to stopping everywhere and inappropiate vehicles for the journey time (lack of toilet etc).

I honestly don't know what the right answer is, option 3 is the obvious answer if we were treating public transport as a service but obviously someone needs to fund it. I'm not sure option 4 is the best option either though as I'll be openly honest I couldn't think of anything worse than a B5TL stopping everywhere in Leeds and York, before getting anywhere at all. Option 2 is 100% the wrong option though.

 

[renegademaster]

Are their any E400 or similar urban busses which do have toilets? Plenty suburban trains that stop every 3 minutes and have toilets in southernland

 

[Mollman]

Interesting article, https://www.wearepossible.org/latest-news/new-coach-network

It makes the points that new coach provision is quick and relatively easy and cheap (presumably compared with rail upgrades!) Includes Preston to Skipton, Cairnryan to Carlisle, Workington-Penrith-Darlington etc. I am surprised to see Manchester - Leeds and replication of the ECML (including sleepers!) but they say it is to address the exclusion caused by rail prices.
All far too sensible to be put into action in the UK, of course!

Preston - Skipton already has an hourly bus service which requires local authority support. Skipton - Harrogate has an on off bus service. If there was demand for a coach I would expect those routes to be commercial hourly minimum services.
Not sure why you need a new Preston - Manchester coach as the train is reasonably priced - Stagecoach gave up on that corridor long ago and there are longer distance coaches that do provide the link if desperate.

 

[Falcon1200]

The proposal in their report is a London to Cairnryan overnight coach service for people to catch the ferry. It's not just a Cairnryan-Carlisle link!.

Since the advent of low-cost airlines how many people actually travel between London and Belfast overland and over sea? I would say hardly any, if any at all! Even Glasgow/Belfast is way faster by air, the means I used when last making that journey.

 

[Yorkshireguy]

To be fair you probably should have aswell:

4. Run the route with conventional buses stopping at every bus stop on the way.

Option 4 - most cost effective for the operator, worst for long distance passengers due to extended travel time due to stopping everywhere and inappropiate vehicles for the journey time (lack of toilet etc).

I honestly don't know what the right answer is, option 3 is the obvious answer if we were treating public transport as a service but obviously someone needs to fund it. I'm not sure option 4 is the best option either though as I'll be openly honest I couldn't think of anything worse than a B5TL stopping everywhere in Leeds and York, before getting anywhere at all. Option 2 is 100% the wrong option though.

Stagecoach East Scotland’s express services in Fife are probably better models than the Citylink services for Coastliner. Until a timetable change next month, the X59 and X54 have been limited stop from Edinburgh to Glenrothes but all-stops from Glenrothes to St Andrews and Dundee, providing a somewhat similar mix of local and regional journeys. The timetable change is shifting the all-stops to be more of a semifast. Fife has a much stronger set of local services (some commercial, though many tendered) which allow it to do this and feed traffic - for example, the village of Balmullo (pop. 1,320) has two buses per hour to Dundee, Tayport, Glenrothes and St Andrews, whereas Pickering has the one bus per hour in the summer to Leeds and one bus every other hour to Scarborough. An X59 that stops in Cowdenbeath, Dunfermline and every stop into Edinburgh (á la Coastliner) would not be fun!

By contrast, the 840/843 functions as a bunch of potentially separable but instead overlapping routes combined into one - regional routes connecting Leeds to York and York to Scarborough/Whitby, but also local services between for example Leeds and Tadcaster, York and Stockton-on-the-Forest, Flamingo Land to Pickering and Malton, and Pickering to Whitby via Goathland, Ruswarp and Sleights. Most of the 840 from the coast empties at York Stonebow for example, so this is probably a better way to think about things than a single route that necessarily warrants 150 stops. If an express was implemented, the added public costs for the council to provision tenders to replace these local connections is something that North Yorkshire Council just doesn’t do, though with the new combined authority there could be the political will for this to change. Some of these local services could be seasonal (Flamingo Land) or low-frequency (Goathland) to save money, and would be single-decker (Coastliner is forced to use double-deckers in a lot of places/times where it’s less warranted) though I doubt that it’d be cost-efficient enough even then.

Interestingly, faster services along the Coastliner route have been tried before - notably Cityzap between Leeds and York, and Coastliner Express running Leeds-Scarborough-Whitby. Both haven’t stuck around. I doubt a coach would change that. It’s notable that Coastliner endures competition from the railway when connecting Leeds, York, Malton, Seamer and Scarborough, though Pickering and Tadcaster have no rail link whatsoever. The bus is significantly slower, only an equal frequency to the train between Malton and Scarborough, and before the £2 price cap did not significantly compete on price. It was (and, really, still is) always better to drive if you could.

Stagecoach benefits from serving more, larger, closer-together areas either not connected by rail (most of Glenrothes, St Andrews, previously Leven) or within an acceptable time margin as well as under-22/over-60 free travel schemes and, as mentioned, a strong local network. Traffic is also less seasonal. Coastliner just doesn’t have this. Presumably, the higher, more consistent levels of traffic generated by this enable the significantly cheaper ticket prices.

In this area, improving local services to connect with rail would make a bigger difference. York-Scarborough “only” needs units and drivers to achieve 2tph, and then a second bus per hour even during the summer between Pickering and Malton (which could be achieved using one vehicle?) with integrated ticketing from Malton instead of York and less anti-competitive bus timetabling could be transformational.

It is notable that between Edinburgh/Glasgow and Dundee, Citylink, Ember and Flixbus all have routes despite there being competition by rail, so perhaps between Middlesbrough and Newcastle there could be the traffic and journey times for this to work.

To be competitive, a bus service has to be fast, frequent and cheap. Previously, the 840 was none of them, so at least it might have a chance now it’s cheap.

 

[markymark2000]

The numbers using ferries by fopt is very low and ferry crossings aren't cheap, that's before you factor getting to the port. It's why the budget airlines have done so well, across Easyjet and Ryanair there are regular flights from pretty much all the regional airports to Dublin and Belfast and at lower cost than train / coach / ferry.

The number of ferry foot passengers isn't that low in my opinion. And if access to the ports was improved, more people would use them as foot passengers.

Pembroke - Rosslare. Pembroke has no public transport access, Rosslare has some buses but the trains only meet 1 of the 2 daily ferries.
Holyhead - Belfast. Holyhead has a train service which is often delayed or cancelled. Or you have to mess around changing trains several times because of 'short notice changes to the timetable'. When trains are late, especially on the late night services, there's far too many reports from passengers that there is no communication or an unwillingness to hold train/ferry connections. When you get over to Dublin, the reviews of the Nolan Coaches shuttle service from the port don't seem the best, lots of complaints online about them not turning up or not taking you to where the timetable says you should go to.
Birkenhead - Belfast. Birkenhead has advertised only the 811 local bus but this runs not for the ferry but for industrial workers so the times don't link up. Walk from the main road which isn't the most pleasant. Or get the unadvertised shuttle. In Belfast, the 96 bus which runs to the Stena terminal, doesn't meet this ferry at all, especially on weekends, so you're stuffed.
Cairnryan - Larne. P&O Cairnryan only has the Stagecoach 358/360 which is really slow to get to anywhere and these buses don't meet many of the ferry departures. Larne has an hourly train, not sure on the quality of that though.
Birkenhead has the bus link from Hamilton Square but good luck finding out any information about it. I've searched long and hard and can't find any information on it online. Even Stenas own website says there is no bus link (but there is).
Cairnryan - Belfast. Stena Cairnryan has the Railsail coach once per day to Ayr, 923 Citylink from Glasgow, or the Stagecoach 358/360 which again, take forever to get anywhere. In Belfast, Translinks 96 runs infrequently linking to Belfast, really not great though with how infrequently it runs and even more funny is that the 923 Belfast shuttle doesn't seem to sell tickets normal tickets for passengers between Belfast City Centre and Stena, you must have a Citylink ticket and travel through to Ayr/Glasgow, so you don't even have that as an option if you happen to use another mode of transport to get to Cairnryan.


Just look at the above options and tell me that you find any of them attractive as a public transport user. Either lack of public transport or where it does exit, it's infrequent or doesn't connect for a number of the ferries. You're looking at the effect, not the cause. Provide better public transport to the ports, you'll see more people making those connections.

You mean like the existing ferry from Liverpool ? (Which I notice you didn't mention,).

The ferry that takes 8 hours! Stupidly long journey time and plus you have to mess around getting over to BIRKENHEAD for the ferry. Not Liverpool as Stena wrongly promote. It's quicker in some cases to go via Holyhead than to use this ferry! That says a lot.

But it's not that brilliant - Citylink operate 30 routes of varying frequencies. National Express operates ten times that, that's before you then count Megabus, Flix and various "express bus" services such as the Green Line 757. So I'd contest Scotland has a "vast" network as the statistics don't support your claim.

You are only including Citylink in your analysis here. Ember and Flixbus operate a good number of coaches too. You are also completely ignoring the many Stagecoach and some West Coast Motors coaches which operate their own branded longer distance routes. For example, Stagecoach X76 and WCM 918 are coach routes, it's just operated under their own operators branding.

Your doubt is highly misplaced:

National Express Timetables Route List

timetables.nationalexpress.com

Search all, and......

The number you have provided is extremely misleading. Not least because every single route is listed twice there (different entry for each direction), it includes a shed load of festival and event and 3rd party routes which NX doesn't operate, just sells tickets for. The list on bustimes is a lot more accurate for finding out the proper number of routes and that is 131 routes minus 19 which are Wembley specials and the 3 routes (175, 767 & 788) which have just/are about to finish operating so overall 109 routes. You can massively cut that down too because of NatEx weird numberings. The actual number of services is closer to around 80-90.

National Express

I am surprised there hasn't been a a turn up and go service like the 900 between Liverpool and Leeds via Manchester.

This would be amazing. Pre Covid NatEx had a lovely hourly link from Liverpool through to Leeds, few stops on Edge Lane, then nothing till a few stops on Regent Road Salford, into Manchester Chorlton Street. Few stops on Oldham Road/Broadway then direct to Leeds. 2h 30 end to end. Pretty competitive with the train really. Sadly now NatEx killed off the fast links and forced everything via Manchester Airport (bar the now gone 175). Megabus to Liverpool has always been a token gesture and never them wanting to get a sizeable market share. Flixbus is starting to do a bit more in August but nowhere near the right levels for turn up an go.

Since the advent of low-cost airlines how many people actually travel between London and Belfast overland and over sea? I would say hardly any, if any at all! Even Glasgow/Belfast is way faster by air, the means I used when last making that journey.

The numbers don't have to be stupidly high, there just has to be enough to make the coach viable. There are many people who don't like flying and would therefore prefer to travel over sea. There are people who don't like boats and so they fly. It's about giving people choice. We can have upto 10 coaches per day going from London to Paris from various companies, people clearly choose this option as it works for them. The Eurostar and low cost airlines do this journey significantly quicker and sometimes cheaper, yet somehow companies can still make coaches work.

 

[Snex]

Stagecoach East Scotland’s express services in Fife are probably better models than the Citylink services for Coastliner. Until a timetable change next month, the X59 and X54 have been limited stop from Edinburgh to Glenrothes but all-stops from Glenrothes to St Andrews and Dundee, providing a somewhat similar mix of local and regional journeys. The timetable change is shifting the all-stops to be more of a semifast. Fife has a much stronger set of local services (some commercial, though many tendered) which allow it to do this and feed traffic - for example, the village of Balmullo (pop. 1,320) has two buses per hour to Dundee, Tayport, Glenrothes and St Andrews, whereas Pickering has the one bus per hour in the summer to Leeds and one bus every other hour to Scarborough. An X59 that stops in Cowdenbeath, Dunfermline and every stop into Edinburgh (á la Coastliner) would not be fun!

By contrast, the 840/843 functions as a bunch of potentially separable but instead overlapping routes combined into one - regional routes connecting Leeds to York and York to Scarborough/Whitby, but also local services between for example Leeds and Tadcaster, York and Stockton-on-the-Forest, Flamingo Land to Pickering and Malton, and Pickering to Whitby via Goathland, Ruswarp and Sleights. Most of the 840 from the coast empties at York Stonebow for example, so this is probably a better way to think about things than a single route that necessarily warrants 150 stops. If an express was implemented, the added public costs for the council to provision tenders to replace these local connections is something that North Yorkshire Council just doesn’t do, though with the new combined authority there could be the political will for this to change. Some of these local services could be seasonal (Flamingo Land) or low-frequency (Goathland) to save money, and would be single-decker (Coastliner is forced to use double-deckers in a lot of places/times where it’s less warranted) though I doubt that it’d be cost-efficient enough even then.

Interestingly, faster services along the Coastliner route have been tried before - notably Cityzap between Leeds and York, and Coastliner Express running Leeds-Scarborough-Whitby. Both haven’t stuck around. I doubt a coach would change that. It’s notable that Coastliner endures competition from the railway when connecting Leeds, York, Malton, Seamer and Scarborough, though Pickering and Tadcaster have no rail link whatsoever. The bus is significantly slower, only an equal frequency to the train between Malton and Scarborough, and before the £2 price cap did not significantly compete on price. It was (and, really, still is) always better to drive if you could.

Stagecoach benefits from serving more, larger, closer-together areas either not connected by rail (most of Glenrothes, St Andrews, previously Leven) or within an acceptable time margin as well as under-22/over-60 free travel schemes and, as mentioned, a strong local network. Traffic is also less seasonal. Coastliner just doesn’t have this. Presumably, the higher, more consistent levels of traffic generated by this enable the significantly cheaper ticket prices.

In this area, improving local services to connect with rail would make a bigger difference. York-Scarborough “only” needs units and drivers to achieve 2tph, and then a second bus per hour even during the summer between Pickering and Malton (which could be achieved using one vehicle?) with integrated ticketing from Malton instead of York and less anti-competitive bus timetabling could be transformational.

It is notable that between Edinburgh/Glasgow and Dundee, Citylink, Ember and Flixbus all have routes despite there being competition by rail, so perhaps between Middlesbrough and Newcastle there could be the traffic and journey times for this to work.

To be competitive, a bus service has to be fast, frequent and cheap. Previously, the 840 was none of them, so at least it might have a chance now it’s cheap.

Yeah some good analysis to be fair and can't dispute any of at all, if I had to be honest.

Mind talking about Cityzap, I'm surprised they didn't take that as an opportunity to speed the Coastliner services up.

Could've easily had it as something like:
Leeds - York - Monks Cross - all stops to Scarborough / Whitby
Leeds - York (Stopper service - current Coastliner route)
81 runs via Stockton / Heworth instead of Monks Cross

You're probably right though, to be fair, on using the rail link. I totally forgot it was there when I first posted it, if I had to be honest. It certainly should be 2 trains per hour though, mind you would need to sort out the horrific timetabling and also fares though, like you mentioned. Hopefully something we will see more in the future but I have my doubts.