National express > Reviews (98)

I've been to a fair few countries and travelled on a number of different bus services. It's safe to say that National Express is far from the worst bus company I've ever used (that would go to one in Vietnam) but as the UK's premier bus company really NE should be striving to meet higher standards.

The Buses - Good points

They look great on the outside. They have toilets, but it's potluck whether they'll work properly or not. On my recent trip back England I used NE five times. I used the toilet on two of those trips - once there was water to wash your hands, once there was not. The ride is smooth and the air con worked fine on all of the trips I took.

The Buses - Bad points

The seats are uncomfortable. Most of my trips were between 2 - 4 hours, and it was impossible to get comfortable at any time. I'm 6ft, regular build. And the seatbelts make it worse - I know that they are UK law now but they are tight and gave me shoulder ache. It wasn't a surprise to see that most people on my bus weren't using them. In addition, while the seats have a recline function it's pretty minimal, about three inches. On one of my journeys the seat didn't recline at all because the handle had been snapped off.

Destinations

For a full list, look at their website, but here is where I find it difficult to fault National Express. They do have a very extensive network of journeys, although for a lot of outlying areas you have to make a lot of stops. For example, one of my journeys was from Exeter to Heathrow, but the bus had already called at Paignton and Torquay so it must have been a pretty long, arduous journey for those passengers. I live in Cornwall and it's impossible however to get with forty miles of my home town, but really I can understand why some areas have no service because of the ridiculous fuel prices in the UK, but from major city to major city it's no problem. Frequency is also pretty good.

Prices

And here they fall away again. I use NE because they're cheaper than the train, but that doesn't mean the tickets are particularly well-priced. And they have that same irritating habit of changing the price depending on the time, day, how long in advance you book, whether you book a return, etc.. At times it can be infuriating. For example, on arriving at Heathrow back in March, due to the nature of flights I hadn't booked my onward bus in advance. Therefore, I got stung with a 37.60 "on the day single" to Bristol. Painful, when the website price had said around 23 pounds. Similarly, the following week I took a bus from Bristol to London - 7.50. A wonderful bargain. The final bus of my holiday, Exeter to Heathrow, however, was 27.50, yet another bus, going to London Victoria - a longer distance - was only 11.50. So they're charging 16 pounds for the driver to unload my bag? What's going on here?

It seems that bus companies (and indeed trains) seem to think that by offering bargain-priced fares for certain times of travel they're doing the world a favour. They're not.

All they're doing is creating bad feeling among everyone who has to use the bus at a different time of day. A great suggestion - make the fare between two destinations the SAME, regardless of when you book, regardless of when you want to travel. Make a return exactly double the price of a single. Stop playing games and give everyone a fair go. It's not like NE has a lot of competition, is it?

Service

This is as variable as the wind. To be fair, on the buses I took on my last trip back to England the drivers were pretty nice and the buses were more or less punctual. In the past I've had to sit for an hour on a bus in the coach station while the driver twiddled his thumbs at the front, while on another occasion I was shouted at for not helping the driver to unload my bag. Conversely, this time I made an attempt and the driver (clearly not the same one) told me not to worry about it.

I would like it if on a longer journey the buses made a stop at a service area. My Exeter to Heathrow bus did stop at Bridgewater to pick up more passengers. Several people jumped off to smoke a cigarette or use the public toilet but the driver made no attempt to check that everyone was back on board before starting off again. Far from offering a quality service I got the impression that it was every man for himself, and if you got left behind then more fool you.

Conclusions

I prefer train travel to buses, but train tickets are even more ridiculously priced than those of NE and when you're making a number of journeys on a budget you have to save where you can. National Express does a passable job but its a service that could easily be improved. For myself, its very easy to criticise because I live in Japan where bus travel is extremely punctual, the prices are always the same regardless of when you book or when you travel, the seats are comfortable and have a decent level of recline, and the drivers are polite almost to the point of cariacature. However, having also travelled widely in poorer parts of Asia I've come into contact with the kind of services where the driver will stop off at his mate's out-of-the-way restaurant and promptly go to sleep under a tree, leaving you with nothing to do but wander around until you get hungry enough to spend money as per the plan.

National Express is far closer to the former, but for my liking not close enough.

Also on ciao under headofwords.