National Express Coaches

This article is about the company responsible for most long distance bus and coach services in Great Britain and the brand it uses; for information on its parent company, see National Express Group.

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National Express Coach

A National Express coach in the new livery
Founded	1972
Headquarters	Birmingham, England, UK
Service area	England, Wales, Scotland
Service type	Intercity coach service
Hubs	Birmingham, London, Manchester, Glasgow, Gatwick Airport, Heathrow Airport, Southampton, Leeds, Liverpool
Operator	National Express Group
Chief executive	Randall E West
Web site	National Express Coach

Latest liveried Caetano Levante

The previous National Express livery on a coach on route 561

A Scania K124 EB Irizar of National Express in the previous livery, pictured in Cambridge.

Previous National Express logo.

The pre-2003 National Express livery (essentially as inherited from the National Bus Company) on a Volvo B10M / Plaxton Premiere coach

National Express Coaches, more commonly known as National Express, is the brand under which the majority of long distance bus and coach services in Great Britain are marketed,^[1] and also the company that manages this network and operates some of the services. Most services are subcontracted to local bus and coach companies throughout England, Scotland and Wales, as specified below.

The brand and company are based in Birmingham and are owned by the National Express Group, a group of diverse transport interests also including passenger rail operators and local bus operators.

History

The National Express brand was created in 1972 by the state-owned National Bus Company (NBC), to bring together the express bus and coach services operated by companies within the NBC group. The National Express network was largely a branding and management exercise, with services continuing to be operated by the individual companies.

With the privatisation of the NBC in the 1980s, National Express was subject to a management buy-out in 1988. In 1992, National Express Group plc was floated on the London Stock Exchange with a remit to acquire new businesses in the passenger transport market, with National Express as a subsidiary company.

During 2001, National Express took the decision to end the historic on-board steward/ess service. Phil White, their then MD had stated he felt they made the company look old fashioned and passengers did not need them.

For most of its existence, National Express Coach Division had little, if any, competition in the long distance coach market. However, in 2003, Stagecoach Group introduced a "no-frills" service, Megabus, whose £1 fares sparked a price war with National Express in autumn 2004. The competition intensified in 2007 when Megabus transferred its London terminus from the Green Line Coach Station into the main Victoria Coach Station.

In 2007–2008, as part of a group wide restructuring and rebranding exercise, the National Express coach fleet received a slightly different livery, retaining the red white and blue theme, but a new lower-case logo, with coaches appearing in the new livery from December 2007.

Major destinations

Service Brands

Most domestic National Express services run under the brand name of 'National Express'. A smaller number come under the following brand names:

Shuttle Services

Frequent services from London operate as National Express Shuttle services. Most of these services operate at least once an hour, and operate over direct routes - some other services deviate to serve smaller destinations. The London - Birmingham and London - Bristol services are marketed as NXL (National Express London) services, and operate with Irizar PB / Scania K124 coaches. Unusually, the London - Birmingham service, when upgraded, was not franchised, and was operated directly by the company, and based at Birmingham's Digbeth coach station. However during 2007, along with other Birmingham based services operated by Travel West Midlands and Go West Midlands, these where franchised out to Veolia, due to the lack of space available at Birmingham's temporary coach station. Also the 040 Bristol - London Shuttle defies National Express's norm by continuing to Burnham on Sea (a small westcountry seaside resort) once a day in each direction, usually early morning to London and late evening from, but still retains its NXL shuttle branding.

From / To London shuttle services

• 010 — Cambridge
• 025 — Gatwick Airport and Brighton (Accessible Coach Service)
• 032 — Southampton
• 035 — Bournemouth
• 040 — Bristol (Burnham on Sea and W-S-M, 1 Journey per day) (NXL Shuttle)
• 420 — Birmingham, Dudley and Wolverhampton (NXL Shuttle) (Telford, Shrewsbury and Wrexham, 2 journeys with one extending to Aberystwyth) (The 420 interworks with services 570 and 545 in order to provide a frequent Birmingham - London service with these services then extending beyond Birmingham)

Non-London Shuttle services

• 060 — Leeds - Manchester - Liverpool (evening services operate via Bradford)
• 070 — Sheffield - Leeds - This service was introduced to replace the Yorkshire Traction, Yorkshire Rider and SYT joint operated X32 service Sheffield to Leeds (Known locally as the White Rose Express).

Airport services

National Express Airport services operate to a variety of destinations from Gatwick, Heathrow, East Midlands, Luton and Stansted airports. The Airport brand was created in 2003 when the National Express image brand was updated - it merged the former Airlink, Flightlink, Jetlink and Speedlink brands, which were confusing, especially to passengers travelling between Heathrow and Gatwick airports. Most coaches on these services operate with the National Express Airport brand, the airport being in white inside a red box below the 'National Express' name on the side of the coach. Vehicles on services 777 and 210 operate in standard National Express branding as these services are now operated by Veolia, and use the same pool of coaches of that operators services based in Birmingham (namely the 325, 420 and 545).

Selection of Airport services

• 200 — Gatwick Airport - Heathrow Airport - Reading - Bristol
• 201 — Gatwick Airport - Heathrow Airport - Bristol - Newport - Cardiff - Swansea
• 202 — Heathrow Airport - Bristol - Newport - Cardiff - Swansea
• 205 — Gatwick Airport - Heathrow Airport - Ringwood - Bournemouth - Poole
• 210 — Gatwick Airport - Heathrow Airport - Banbury / Coventry - Birmingham - Wolverhampton
• 230 — Gatwick Airport - Heathrow Airport - Milton Keynes - Leicester - Nottingham
• 240 — Bradford - Leeds - Sheffield - Chesterfield - East Midlands Airport - Coventry - Warwick Parkway - Heathrow Airport - Gatwick Airport (Accessible Coach Service)
• 707 — Gatwick Airport - Heathrow Airport - Hemel Hempstead - Luton Airport - Luton bus station - Milton Keynes - Northampton
• 777 — Stansted Airport - Luton Airport - Birmingham (early morning and evening services extend to/from Wolverhampton)

Accessible coach routes

National Express is introducing a new generation of coaches onto the UK network that feature a wheelchair lift incorporated into the passenger entrance. The easy access coach features a wider entrance and a completely flat floor throughout the coach to aid mobility for all. A streamlined NX Magic Floor Lift is incorporated into the passenger entrance and when deployed, the wheelchair is locked in place and the customer safely and securely uses the same standard three-point seat belt as other customers. Other features include reclining leather seats, air conditioning, and a large toilet.

A programme of routes is currently being planned to roll out the accessible coach across the network, with the whole network being fully accessible by 2012. The routes currently operating with the wheelchair accessible coaches are:

While some services are regularly operated by wheelchair-accessible coaches, occasionally these are substituted for standard vehicles. Likewise wheelchair-accessible coaches can sometimes be seen on services which are diagrammed for standard coaches if the operator runs a mixture of accessible and non-accessible routes.

Fares

A number of discount fare brands are available, including:

Coachcards

National Express offers a range of coachcards to customers which allows discounts on National Express tickets. At one point, this consisted of a Student, Young Persons, and Advantage 50 coachcards - which allowed the holder up to 30% of the price of coach tickets. This has since been rationalised with the company only offering an NX2 card (recently renamed the 16 to 25 coachcard in order to provide a clearer brand name), offering the same discount to previous Students and Young Persons cards. Since the introduction in 2004 of half price fares for the over 60's, the Advantage 50 card was scrapped, although cards are still valid until expiry. A Family coachcard is also offered, and is cheaper than the NX2 card, and allows the holder of the card to take one child free with them, in many cases the cost of the Family Coachcard is cheaper than the fare for a child.

Brit Xplorer

This is a card valid for a set period of time which allows non-UK residents (a passport of another country is needed to purchase this) travel as a standby passenger on all National Express services, the holder can opt to pay a small fee in order to reserve a seat on a specific service.

Funfares

Launched as a result of severe competition from easyBus and Megabus, funfares are cheap single fares, purchased only on the internet as an 'e-ticket', similar to low-fare airlines, thus reducing overheads. Further restrictions are put on these tickets - such as the inability to change the time on the ticket, or to travel on a different coach. Funfares were launched on Shuttle services but have since been rolled out across the network. A percentage of seats on off-peak services can be booked in this way. For a long while Funfares were priced from a highly competitive £1 a ticket, which undercut Megabus when taking into account booking charges. Subsequently though the price of Funfares increased to a less attractive minimum of £5 a single ticket with an additional booking charge^[2] which means that they are often undercut by rival bus and on occasions train operators. As of Spring 2009, this change has been reversed, so that Funfares are now available again for £1 with no booking charge.

Multirides

For frequent travellers, packs of ten separate journeys can be bought for a saving of ten percent on regular fares on a limited number of services. Tickets are valid for up to six months and can be used in either direction of travel. These are only sold on a limited number of services.

Operations

Franchise operators

The majority of National Express services are contracted to local bus and coach companies. As part of the contract, operators who run services every day are required to use coaches in full National Express livery, although there are a few exceptions for operators who operate irregular services (for example extras laid on at weekends). There are also some occasions where an operator will use a privately hired vehicle due to lack of availability.

In addition to this, coaches from outside companies can be hired in at anytime to work "Duplicate Coaches" which can run alongside a route for all or some of it - an extremely common practice during busy periods.

Recently some of the operators who are not contracted to provide National Express liveried coaches have begun to break away from this, by using vehicles in plain white with a National Express logo on the side, and a few have also acquired coaches that are no longer in regular service on the network.

One such operator - Stagecoach - is both a National Express franchisee, and operates its own rival Megabus services.

A current illustrated list of Coaches & their operators is available at: A pictorial fleet list of current National Express Coach operations

Advertising

A television advertising campaign in the 1980s included a jingle with the slogan 'National Express Coaches go our way, we're going yours'.

Incidents

Since National Express started operating, there have been few road traffic accidents (RTIs) involving their coaches.

2007

One happened on the evening of 3 January 2007, when a Neoplan Skyliner coach overturned and crashed on the M25 motorway slip road near Heathrow Airport, killing two passengers.^[3] The other sixty-five passengers and two staff members were all taken to hospital. The coach driver Phillip Rooney, was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving, and was released on Police Bail. National Express Group temporarily withdrew all twelve Skyliners from service on 5 January 2007, pending investigations - only reinstating them in late May 2007,^[4] after no safety issues were found.^[5] A third passenger died six-months later due to the injuies sustained in the crash.^[6] After initially denying all charges,^[7] the driver subsequently admitted to three counts of causing death by dangerous driving at a Crown Court hearing, the case was subsequently passed to the Old Bailey for sentencing.^[8] The crash was deemed to have been caused by travelling at excessive speed round a bend - the Court was told he drove like a man "possessed", whilst at the same time, the he was speaking to the coach passengers via the coach's public address system.^[9] The driver was jailed for five years, and banned from driving for three years.^[9]

Another collision occurred on 3 September 2007, when a coach hit the side of a kerb and overturned on the entrance to Newport Pagnell services. Luckily, no one was killed in the accident. The driver has been dismissed by National Express, and has been banned from driving ever since.^{[citation needed]}

2009

More recently, exactly two years later, a collision occurred on 3 September 2009 at Gatwick Airport, when a coach crashed into the side of a black Ford Ka. The single occupent of the car, a 34-year-old woman from Ely in Cardiff named Melanie Wisden, was killed instantly. The coach ended up on top of her car, crushing her. An investigation is currently underway into the cause of the collision.^{[citation needed]}

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: National Express Coaches

• List of bus operators of the United Kingdom
• Scottish Citylink Scottish Express Coach services
• Coach services in the United Kingdom
• ALSA Spanish Operator part owned by National Express

References

External links

• National Express - official portal
  • National Express Coach - official website
  • History of the National Express Group
• National Express Gallery & Fleet lists - unofficial site

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