Megabus (Europe)

A Megabus single-decker rolls into Dunfermline with the M91 to Edinburgh.
Slogan	Low cost inter city bus travel in the UK, Ireland and Europe.
Parent	Stagecoach
Founded	2003
Headquarters	10 Dunkeld Road, Perth, PH1 5TW Scotland[1]
Locale	EU
Service area	Northern Europe
Service type	Intercity coach service
Routes	19
Destinations	41 jurisdictions served
Hubs	London (Victoria Coach Station), Perth (Broxden Park & Ride), Glasgow (Bus Station) Aberdeen (Union Square)
Operator	Stagecoach Group (some Scotland routes operated by Scottish Citylink and Parks of Hamilton on behalf on megabus)
Chief executive	Brian Souter
Website	Megabus

Megabus (sometimes branded megabus.com and Megabusplus) is a coach service operated by Stagecoach Group. It started in 2003, initially in the UK, and by December 2012 served 60 destinations in England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Some services link with Megatrain services, also operated by Stagecoach. Advertised fares start at £1/€1 with a 50p/50c booking fee, using a yield management model.

History [edit]

2003 to 2005 [edit]

Services from London to Oxford commenced on 4 August 2003, and from Edinburgh to Glasgow and Perth and Glasgow to Dundee were added one month later. During November 2003 routes between Manchester and Liverpool and Leeds were added, but these ceased on 27 June 2004 and 3 October 2004 respectively. The most significant development of the Megabus network came on 1 March 2004 when a whole network of routes from the Green Line Coach Station (Bulleid Way) in London, a short distance from Victoria Coach Station, to Brighton, Portsmouth, Southampton, Bournemouth, Bristol, Exeter, Plymouth, Cardiff, Swansea and Birmingham were added. These have since moved to Victoria Coach Station in a deal with Transport for London.^[2]

M90 service Megabus in Perth in 2004.

On 28 June 2004 routes from London to Milton Keynes, Leicester, Chesterfield, Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester and Glasgow were added and within two months these were followed by the expansion of the Scottish routes to include Aberdeen and Inverness.

Stagecoach lost the contract to run the National Express route between Gloucester, Cheltenham and London, prompting it to introduce Megabus between Cheltenham, Gloucester and London from 5 September 2004. The next day, Stagecoach took over the Motorvator service between Edinburgh and Glasgow, selling a number of seats per journey through the Megabus site, the remainder being available without booking in advance, at regular fares. This enabled Stagecoach to cancel the dedicated Megabus service between the two cities.

Routes between London and Liverpool, and London and Newcastle started on 10 October 2004. On 15 November 2004, the Oxford to London service was replaced by seats on the Oxford Tube. From 6 December 2004, the service between Cheltenham, Gloucester and London also called at Swindon.

On 31 January 2005, Stagecoach Express service X5 between Oxford and Cambridge became part of the Megabus network, selling a number of seats per journey in the same way as the Oxford Tube and Motorvator. From 18 April 2005, Nottingham, Worthing and Winchester were added to the network by slight extensions/modifications to existing routes, but rationalisation of the rest of the network took place, with some early morning and late evening services were withdrawn. From 13 June 2005, the Liverpool to London service called additionally at Stoke-on-Trent^[3] and a new service was introduced between Coventry and London. However, the London-Cardiff-Swansea service was withdrawn between Cardiff and Swansea.

A joint venture between Citylink and Megabus led to co-ordination of services in Scotland. On 21 November 2005, the 900 Motorvator service was replaced by an enhanced Citylink service, with the facility to buy seats through the Megabus website was retained. The next week, most of the faster Citylink services between Aberdeen, Dundee, Perth and Glasgow, and Inverness, Perth and Edinburgh were replaced by a more frequent, combined Megabus/Citylink service. As a consequence, passengers who previously used parallel Citylink services from the bus station in Perth town centre were required to use Broxden Park and Ride on the outskirts of the town, with little to no onward connections to the town centre. Tickets for the combined Megabus/Citylink services are available through both companies' websites, though often at different prices. From 16 February 2006, the slower Citylink service between Dundee, Perth and Glasgow became available to book through the Megabus website, restoring Perth bus station to the Megabus network. The same day of the Citylink service modifications, the London to Manchester route was extended to Preston, with some journeys extended to Blackpool or Lancaster. This coincided with the loss of National Express work at Preston depot. The extensions to Blackpool and Lancaster were short lived, and were withdrawn in February 2006, citing low passenger numbers.

Again following the loss of National Express contracts (this time at Rugby depot), on 5 December 2005, the London to Birmingham service was increased in frequency to every two hours with an additional stop on the outskirts of Coventry, and the withdrawal of the direct once-a-day service to Coventry city centre. One journey a day in each direction was extended to Wolverhampton. The stops in the south of Birmingham were no longer served. Further changes on this day were the doubling of the London to Nottingham service to twice a day with one journey extended to Chesterfield (which regained the service lost in April 2005) and the introduction of a new once-daily service from London to Norwich.

Megabus' famous mascot Sid was based on Dan Brown from Horsley, Surrey.

2006 to 2009 [edit]

A number of changes to routes were made on 27 March 2006. A direct service was introduced between Ferrytoll Park & Ride in Fife, Edinburgh and London via Newcastle and Sheffield. Together with changes to the Leeds to London services, this meant that changes at Tibshelf services were no longer needed. In addition, many routes had timetable changes. In particular, the London to Southampton and London to Portsmouth routes became feeders to the London to Bournemouth service, with passengers required to change at Winchester. Some London to Bristol journeys were extended to Cwmbran.

• The London to Norwich and London to Wolverhampton and Chesterfield services were withdrawn on 14 May 2006
• The London to Cheltenham service introduced an extra stop at Reading Coachway on 20 November 2006.
• Early in February 2007, it was announced that the service between London, Milton Keynes, Leicester and Nottingham would be withdrawn on 11 March 2007. These services were restored Monday-Saturday following the acquisition of the East Midlands Trains franchise by Stagecoach, to and from London by Megatrain.
• From 21 May 2007, services between London and Leeds were extended to Middlesbrough, Sunderland and Newcastle.

On 1 October 2007, the London hub moved from Bulleid Way to Victoria Coach Station.^[4]

From October 2009 [1] a "cross-country" Cardiff–Newcastle service, the M35, began.

2010 to present [edit]

A Van Hool TDX27 Astromega in Aberdeen Union Square bus station

In May 2011 services were introduced between Norwich and London, between Edinburgh and Leeds and between London and Swansea and Pembroke Dock with through ferry fares to Rosslare in Ireland. Additional journeys were added to several existing routes.

From April 2012, Megabus began services linking the UK to continental Europe, from Birmingham and London to Paris and from Leicester and London to Brussels and Amsterdam. This was announced a month prior to the introduction of the services. A third route, entirely outside the UK, links Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam.^[5]

Other services [edit]

Sleeper and Gold services [edit]

Megabus sleeper coach 51062 in Glasgow.

Overnight sleeper services were introduced on the London-Glasgow route in 2011,^[6] using Jonckheere Mistral articulated coaches with a flat bunk bed as well as a seat for each passenger.

Luxury "Megabus Gold" coaches will be introduced in summer 2013 on selected daytime and sleeper routes.^[7] This sub-brand in line with the upmarket Stagecoach Gold and Citylink Gold brands already used by Stagecoach subsiduaries.

Megabusplus [edit]

Megabusplus is a service combining Megabus and Megatrain for through journeys.

Megabusplus services use Megabus from the following destinations to East Midlands Parkway, then Megatrain (East Midlands Trains) to London St Pancras:

• Burnley–Colne–Nelson–Skipton–Keighley–Huddersfield–Halifax–Bradford–East Midlands Parkway
• Harrogate–York–Castleford–East Midlands Parkway
• Hull–Scunthorpe–East Midlands Parkway

Megabusplus services also use coaches to Southampton Airport Parkway, then Megatrain (South West Trains) to Bournemouth.^[8]

Example Megabusplus timetable:

• Harrogate depart 06:15
• York 06:55
• Castleford 07:45
• East Midlands Parkway arrive 09:20
• East Midlands Parkway depart 09:40
• London St Pancras arr 11:18

Megatrain [edit]

Megatrain offers low cost intercity train travel on some East Midlands Trains and South West Trains routes, owned by Stagecoach Group. Services are available Monday to Saturday only, with no service on Sundays or many public holidays.

Tickets and fares [edit]

Advertised fares start at £1 with a 50p booking fee, using a yield management model with the lowest fares offered for booking early and on less popular journeys; typically it is only the first six seats are sold at £1.^[9] Services often use out-of-town coachway interchanges in order to reduce delays caused by calling at interchanges in urban centres. Megatrain also follows the yield management model.

Tickets must be purchased in advance via the megabus.com website or by telephone, when passengers are given a reservation number that they show the driver when they board. The only services in which tickets can be bought on the vehicle are on a small number of Scottish services. Tickets can be paid for in pounds sterling or euro.

About [edit]

The first trial Megabus route was launched in August 2003 and the national network in March 2004.^[10]

In July 2004, the company acquired the Motorvator brand, operating between Glasgow and Edinburgh.^[11]

In January 2005, the company announced that the service frequency of the X5 service between Oxford and Cambridge would double to every 30 minutes. A fleet of 15 refurbished vehicles was introduced at a cost of £1m. The company reported that passenger numbers had been growing at 7-8% per year and that 350,000 passengers were using the service each year.^[12] The megabus network had carried 1.3 million passengers since it started. The company announced that it had placed an order for 25 new high-specification double-decker Neoplan coaches, each capable of carrying 95 passengers.^[13]

In June 2005, the company launched new routes serving Coventry and Stoke-on-Trent.^[14]

In August 2005, the company introduced a fleet of new double-decker coaches with air-conditioning, toilets and more comfortable seats at a cost of £6.5 million and announced that it had carried 2.6m passengers since startup.^[10]

In September 2005, ComfortDelGro (the owners of Scottish Citylink) and Stagecoach announced that they were entering into a joint venture to provide express coach services within Scotland^[15] effectively ending the competition on Megabus routes within Scotland. Under the terms of the agreement, Stagecoach would acquire 35% of Citylink, in return for certain rights to the Megabus brand in Scotland.^[11] Despite being a minority shareholder, Stagecoach has assumed operational control of Scottish Citylink, with Stagecoach staff taking management roles within the company and Stagecoach subsidiaries replacing subcontract operators on many routes. Some Citylink services have also been sacrificed in favour of the Megabus brand, where operations overlapped.^{[citation needed]}

On 14 November 2005, the Megabus concept was extended to rail services with the introduction of Megatrain between London Waterloo and Southampton Central, and London and Portsmouth and Southsea/Portsmouth Harbour, using a dedicated carriage on selected South West Trains services. This concept has since been extended to the Virgin Trains and East Midlands Trains franchises controlled by Stagecoach, with the latter replacing a Megabus route.

In March 2006, Megabus launched its first Megabus (North America) service.^[16] The Competition Commission started an investigation into the merger of Megabus and Scottish Citylink.

In October 2006, the company placed an order for 45 new 63-seat double-decker coaches, which have a toilet and a lift for wheelchair passengers. The cost of the new vehicles was given as £11m. The chief executive, Brian Souter, claimed that “Bus and coach travel is the greener way to travel and far less damaging than airlines" highlighting the CO2 emissions for a London-Glasgow trip by megabus were 7 times lower than by easyjet.^[17]

In October 2006, the Competition Commission published its report on the merger with Scottish Citylink. It concluded the merger was anti-competitive on the "Saltire Cross" routes in Scotland and required the joint venture to sell certain services.^[18] Various services were subsequently sold to Parks of Hamilton, an unaffiliated operator, in early 2008.^[19]

The logo used for Megabusplus services.

During March 2009 Megabusplus began.^[9]

In May 2009, the company started services to the University of the West of England at Bristol Frenchay Campus.^[20]

In May 2011 Megabus expanded its network and offered Irish Ferries boat travel to and from Rosslare.

•A new twice-daily service between Norwich, Thetford and London

•Improved frequency between Plymouth, Exeter and London

•A new service between London and Swansea and Pembroke Dock with through ferry fares to Rosslare in Ireland.

•A through ferry fare to Rosslare from Bristol, Newport and Cardiff.

•New once-daily connections from Carmarthen to Pembroke Dock (& Rosslare), Swansea, Cardiff, Newport, Bristol and London.

Additional journeys from Perth and Edinburgh to Newcastle, Sheffield and London

•An additional daily journey from Aberdeen to London

•A new link between Edinburgh and Leeds

Stop locations [edit]

Megabus serves many towns and cities. For service efficiency it sometimes uses coachway interchanges rather than urban bus stations (for example Meadowhall Interchange rather than Sheffield Interchange).^[21]

Routes [edit]

Megabus routes [edit]

All services are operated by Megabus unless otherwise noted. Services for special events (such as the British Grand Prix) are not included. Some stops are bypassed at certain times of the day. For further information, see the timetable.

Megabusplus Routes [edit]

MP3 Hull–London

Fleet [edit]

The Megabus fleet is normally easily identifiable, with the megabus.com name on the front and sides in yellow on a blue base and the Megabus logo on the left side of the coach (facing forward) and rear of the bus.^{[citation needed]}

Accessible coaches are operated on routes between England and Wales, the M9 and M90 in Scotland, and the M20.^{[citation needed]}

Vehicles are owned and maintained by various Stagecoach subsidiaries. When branded vehicles are unavailable other Stagecoach vehicles can be used or coaches hired in, as in the case of Coachmasters of Rochdale for the Manchester routes. Stagecoach vehicles range from standard double-deck types such as the Volvo Olympian and Dennis Trident, to Volvo B10M single deckers or even Dennis Dart SLF midibuses. Red Stagecoach London double deckers from Leyton were often seconded to Megabus motorway work until the sale of that company to Macquarie Bank.^{[citation needed]} When using substitute vehicles, there may not always be an on board toilet, and in such cases rest stops are made.

Some journeys are contracted to other operators using non-Megabus liveried vehicles, including Turners Coachways of Bristol, Tetleys of Leeds, Hamiltons of Uxbridge and Compass of Royston.

Fleet history [edit]

Jonckheere-bodied articulated coach in Manchester en route from London to Glasgow.

Initially, most routes used buses designed for short journeys that had neither toilet nor luggage space, and each passenger was allowed only one bag.

Leyland Olympian 94-seat double decker tri-axle buses with toilets were used later on. These were built for Hong Kong Citybus in 1990/1991, which Stagecoach purchased in 1999, but sold again in 2003. The vehicles were retained for Megabus routes.^{[citation needed]} A number of mid-life Volvo B10M coaches temporarily operated various routes, mainly in the South of England, until sufficient Olympians had been prepared for service. Gradually, most of these coaches were taken off Megabus work and used by Stagecoach elsewhere. However, the type made a reappearance at the end of 2005, when they became the mainstays on the services from London to Birmingham and London to Nottingham/Chesterfield.^{[citation needed]}

Newer 'high-frills' bendy coaches, with both toilets and reclining seats, were used for the longer journeys between London and Scotland, but these were replaced early in 2005.^{[citation needed]} These coaches have since been refurbished and modified to include beds for an Overnight 'Sleeper' service between London and Glasgow started in late 2011, competing with the Caledonian Sleeper train.

In summer 2004, Stagecoach received a batch of Neoplan Skyliners for the Oxford Tube. This displaced 68-seat five-year-old double-deck Jonckheere-bodied MAN coaches, some of which went into service with Megabus on cross-border services and on services within Scotland.

Stagecoach ordered another batch of Neoplan Skyliners in 2004, which went into service on Megabus in early 2005. These replaced the articulated coaches used between London and Scotland, and also Olympians on some other longer distance services.

In October 2006, Stagecoach announced an £11m order for 45 Volvo B12BT 15-metre coaches with Plaxton Panther coachwork for Megabus. The tri-axle coaches were the longest rigid vehicles in the UK on their introduction to service in February 2007, and the first of their kind to be built in Britain. The 63-seat vehicles were fully accessible, with wheelchair lifts fitted.

In September 2009, Megabus took delivery of four new Van Hool Astromega double-deck coaches, currently used between London and Scotland via Manchester ^[22]

In October 2011, Megabus started an overnight sleeper service with 24 seats and bunks, between Glasgow and London. In November 2011 it started running daily and has proved to be very popular. The coaches used are modified Volvo B10M articulated coaches with Jonckheere bodywork.

A Megabus Plaxton Elite i rolls through Princes St. in Edinburgh with an M20 to Glasgow.

In early 2013, Megabus introduced new Plaxton Elite i coaches, built upon the Volvo B11RT chassis, into the fleet, running mainly on routes M9, M20 and the 900 (on behalf of Scottish Citylink).

See also [edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Megabus (UK)

• Coach transport in the United Kingdom
• EasyBus
• National Express Coaches
• Megabus (North America)

References [edit]

• BBC News Online article [2]
• BBC New Online article [3]

External links [edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Megabus (UK)

• Megabus.com website
• Scottish Citylink website

v t e Current Bus Operators of Scotland National Magic Bus Megabus National Express Coaches Scottish Citylink (Citylink Gold) Regional Blue Bus of North Lanarkshire First Aberdeen First East Scotland First Glasgow Glasgow Citybus Lothian Buses McGill's Bus Services Munro's of Jedburgh National Express Dundee Stagecoach Bluebird Stagecoach in Fife Stagecoach in the Highlands Stagecoach in Perth Stagecoach Strathtay Stagecoach West Scotland West Coast Motors See also: Transport Scotland