The death of coach travel would be a national tragedy

Travelling by coach is always better in the mind than in reality. American films romanticised the Greyhound bus as a means of escape from Midwest tedium for big-city success, but American roads are long and relatively empty, making up for the crumby ride. A bus journey in Britain usually means a jam-stricken exit from one city, a dash down the middle lane of a clogged motorway, and the sorry climax of a stuttering arrival in another city.

The mega-shrinking of Megabus might, though, pull on a few heartstrings. For millennials, the services offered by the company provided an alternative to overpriced, seatless, delayed or cancelled rail trips from home to university.

Launched in 2003 by Stagecoach founder Sir Brian Souter, the company built a reputation for trendsetting and value for money with online booking, on-board WiFi (patchy most of the time) and ultra-cheap tickets (with prices starting as low as £1) for long-distance trips. At one time 100 cities were on the network and until quite recently, Megabus was carrying more than four million passengers a year.

“When I was at uni Megabus was the only way I could get home,” says Carly Perry, 26, a paralegal based in Greater Manchester. “The train was extortionate and you never got a seat on evening services.”

“Polite and professional,” says Robbie Greig, 30, from Falkirk. “The drivers are decent blokes. I took the Scotland to London service a lot to visit friends, and still opt for buses over trains sometimes.”

Megabus has announced that, as of December 4, it is discontinuing its 15 surviving routes across England and Wales due to levels of customer demand being “simply too low”. The company says that a reduced service will allow it to improve efficiency.

Cross-border services will continue between England and Wales, including links between Newcastle, Leeds, Sheffield and London; Manchester, Birmingham and London; and Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol and Cardiff.

Falcon services between Plymouth and Bristol will continue to run as normal, as well as all services across Scotland.

So, does Megabus’s demise signify a crisis for British coach travel?

The parent company of North America’s Megabus, which was sold by the Stagecoach Group to a US-based private equity firm in 2019, filed for bankruptcy in June this year. The pandemic hammered business, the US government didn’t step in to help as it did with airlines, and huge debts finally proved too much. Another Stateside low-cost firm, Boltbus, collapsed in 2021.

Megabus in the UK has merely blamed dwindling demand, which observers say dates back to the lockdowns of 2020-2021. But online forums contain complaints about smelly and overheated coaches, disgusting toilets, long delays, noisy passengers talking on phones or playing music, beer-swilling men, uncomfortable and cramped seats and – the common denominator – epically long, unpleasant journeys.

The grim reality of UK coach rides

Megabus, like many no-frills airlines, has kept overheads low by employing hardly any staff to support customers. It avoids paying at some bus stations by stopping at out-of-the-way bus stops – which is fine until services are delayed or cancelled. There’s no public service commitment whatsoever; if demand slipped, a service was scrapped.

Dynamic pricing means a £1 passenger was often sat next to someone paying twenty times that, or even more. No refunds or late changes were allowed.

Seating was short on leg room and comfort. The windows and interiors were dirty. The food en route, at Motorway Services, was awful – and they never offered in-trip dining.

I also recall the Totnes-Heathrow service left at 5am and stopped many times before Exeter, making the dawn start hope-sapping. Other services involved a long layover in Birmingham – turning awful five-hour journeys into hideous seven-hour odysseys.

So, perhaps it’s the basic grottiness of the experience that has led to the implosion in demand?

Rivals say the market is buoyant. National Express, which operates the UK’s largest coach network, runs services to 500 destinations. Passenger numbers peaked in 2019 at 20.8 million, but 2023 saw 19.1 million journeys. For years, it had a dire reputation; compared to, say, “semi-bed” buses in developing countries like Argentina and Chile, National Express buses were “retro”, to put it kindly.

In response to Megabus’s winding down of services, National Express is adding over 16,000 seats per week from December 4 on some of its most popular services between London and cities in the North and Midlands.

John Boughton, commercial director at National Express, says: “ We’re expecting to see strong demand and have the flexibility to add more capacity when needed, especially as people start to make travel plans for the festive season.”

Upstarts (or corporations dressed up as “disruptors”) are still seeking to prick the monopolies. Munich-headquartered FlixBus, which arrived in the UK just three years ago, doubled its UK network in 2024 and plans further expansion in 2025.

Andreas Schorling, the managing director of FlixBus UK says, “FlixBus has seen huge passenger demand since launch three years ago, having already transported over five million UK passengers, and we expect this rate of growth to continue as we increase our network to over 200 vehicles by summer of next year, more than double what Megabus operated at their peak.

“This is a renaissance for coach travel… we are proud to be driving the industry’s growth, delivering excellent value and quality for coach travellers.”

The simple truth is, Megabus has failed because others have caught up and it has failed to improve and modernise its fleet. If the rail network wasn’t so awful and unaffordable, we would probably see other bus companies go under.

A spokesman for the Guild of British Coach Operators, Steve Whiteway, says, “Despite the withdrawal of Megabus services in England, the express coach market is buoyant and growing, with the major players leading the field in quality and increasing frequency of services.

“Reliability is a major factor and a significant advantage against the train. That, together with city centre to city centre journeys, ensures travel by coach is more convenient and journey times often little more than by rail. Coupled with fares that are incredible value for money and a guaranteed seat, the Guild sees the future for express coach services as very positive”.

Whiteway says that across the board, the coach industry has experienced “a significant increase in demand” since the pandemic. “This appears to be more than pent-up demand, as the forward order book is looking steady.”  

“The coach is the unsung hero of the UK transport mix, needs no public money, and is infinitely flexible.”

How coach travel in the UK has changed

The UK bus market was the first to be deregulated in Europe. From 1986, most intercity and local buses in England, Scotland and Wales were gradually turned into “free market” operations.

Five large firms emerged – Arriva, First, Go-Ahead, National Express and Stagecoach – with a hold of 70 per cent of the market for the city, regional and intercity buses. Megabus was merely a brand – never a true challenger, and never big enough to take on National Express.

One area where the coach is definitely king is in the realm of small, independent companies offering tours, holidays and football services as well as bespoke city-to-city rides. The Guild of British Coach Operators represents twenty-five such operators in the UK.

Today, private hire of coaches is buoyant, as people realise they exceed the comfort of their car, with a “chauffeur” and a £300,000 “limo” for up to 50 people. As more electric vehicles come into service, with Scotland’s Ember recently announcing fleet expansion, the coach could become a key part of the UK’s sustainable transport future.