The Independent Transport Commission held its Spring Discussion Evening on 30 April, considering what the future holds for coach travel in Britain. James Day reports
The ‘rather neglected topic’ of coaches was the subject of the Independent Transport Commission (ITC) Spring Discussion Evening. The independent research charity aims to improve transport and land use policy.
The event was chaired by ITC Commissioner Kris Beuret OBE. Kris was also one of presenters of the BBC4 programme ‘The Golden Age of Coach Travel.’
Opening the event, she noted: “When I first became Commissioner of the ITC, we had the then Secretary of State come along to see what we do.
“I said to him ‘what about a national coach strategy,’ and he said ‘oh, students and pensioners isn’t it? No votes in that.’ I felt that we ought to pick this issue up.”
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Bringing coach to the road network
Three speakers were present at the event, the first of which was Richard Leonard – Head of Road Safety at Highways England. He also has responsibility for integrations and sustainable transport.
“Coach is something I’ve been working on for most of my career,” he said. “Coaches have a integral role to play on the Strategic Road Network.
“We’re in a position where we’re planning for our next road investment period – 2020 – 2025 – and we are thinking about the needs of the network now and its needs in the future. Developing infrastructure improvements takes time and we need to plan long-term investment.
“We’re thinking about the vision for 2040-2050. What’s the role of coaching and the vision of coaching for delivering a connected country? What are the new markets coach will exploit and where does the coach industry see itself in the future?
“I’ve been thinking about what the national coach network is and what is the role of that in our network, and we understand the challenges and opportunities which are there. I think there are some short-term things we need to do, but there is a long-term vision and I’m keen to understand that long-term aspiration.”
Flexible and scalable
Chris Hardy, Managing Director of National Express UK Coach, was next to speak. “Our vision is to change the perception of coach travel,” he began. “We want to communicate that the coach is national, affordable, accessible, reliable and environmentally friendly. I believe the coach can meet policy objectives.
“Coaches are resilient in a way many other modes are not. It runs all night, in all weathers and across the country. In the 2018 snow, everything shut down except the coach network, which was how people were getting home.
“The coach is value for money – it doesn’t require large Government subsidies or much infrastructure. It is flexible and responsive and can scale up very quickly.
“It contributes to air quality. Euro VI coaches are spectacularly clean. They often get tarred with the same brush as other diesel vehicles. They are very clean and meet the UK’s requirements.
“Coach contributes to mobility objectives. People can get across the country for a tenner. Vehicles can be made accessible, and drivers can support customers. Coach can compliment rail and local bus, but it needs the access.
“In terms of road capacity, a full coach takes a mile of traffic off the road. They are part of the solution.”
Chris claimed there are at least a billion potential coach journeys in the UK annually, but the current market share the industry controls is less than 3%. However, he said that the coach market is growing.
“Last year, National Express networks had 21 million journeys,” he said. “Our research revealed that the equivalent of 45m people have heard of National Express, and 8.8m would use the service.”
To win customers, Chris said it was important to succeed in at least two of three areas – quality of service, pricing and journey time. He also said the service needed to be made visible, with a greater number of partners increasing presence on search engines.
“Coach really benefits from a direct comparison,” Chris added. “When you see coach next to another mode, you can see it is a third of the price for a slightly longer journey.
“I think the golden age of coach is coming. We have operators providing scheduled services like us, along with on demand, business to business, commuter, event services – Glastonbury becomes the largest coach station in the country once per year – and traditional holidays. People are innovating in this space.”
Chris asked how partners and stakeholders help and support the industry: “The first step is to include coach in transport plans and strategies. Investment in infrastructure and facilities is important, but talk to the coach sector. A classic is a bus station which is built without bays big enough for coaches. If you want people to get off a coach and onto a bus, make it fit. Put coaches in journey planners, support coach station provision and share data. Coach can do a lot of things, but only if people tell us where they want to go.”
Modal shift at Heathrow
Tony Caccavone, Surface Access Director for Heathrow, said the airport has performed strongly over the last few years, breaking through the 80m passengers per annum barrier. It is one of only six airports in the world to do this.
“Our surface transport network drives that growth,” he said. “It makes it easier to get to.
“Of the 80m passengers going through Heathrow, 50m travel through the airport via surface modes – the remaining 30m transfer through the airport.
“We have the largest coach station in the UK, with 650 departures per day. Five million of our passengers travel by coach – 10% of the market. You can see how important the coach market is to Heathrow.
“We have some challenges ahead of us. The airports national policy statement was designated in June last year. That sets out a number of surface access targets that we need to meet to enable the growth to happen.
“We have to move our public transport mode share from 40% today to 50% in 2030 and 55% in 2040. We have to reduce the number of colleague car trips to Heathrow by 25% by 2030. We need to double that achievement by 2040. Those two factors together should mean there is no more airport related traffic, despite the expansion.
“With the airport growing from 80m passengers today to 130m by 2040, you can see how important the coach market is to us. Our transport modelling tells us we can meet those targets.”
Tony said public transport mode share has stayed static over recent years, primarily as a result of ride hailing apps like Uber.
“We have to make sure we can delivery on those targets, or we will face limits on air traffic movements,” he added.
“Satisfaction levels on coaches are really high, but it is a hugely untapped market because people don’t know how good a service the market provides. From an airport perspective, our passengers really value speed, ease of travel and trust that the service will be reliable. We strongly believe coach has all those essential components.”
Travel strategy
Following the presentation by the three speakers, the audience had the opportunity to engage in discussion with the ITC, the speakers and each other.
First to be invited to speak was Claire Walters, CEO of Bus Users UK. She said: “One of the problems we find is information. People need to understand how to get from their front door to their destination all the way along. We’re asking for coach and bus strategies and have a rail strategy, but we need a travel strategy – end point to end point, with all modes intermatched and easily available.
“With all the climate change activism going on now, there cannot be a better launch point for passengers to understand their options.
“We’re marketing the experience wrongly. We’re being too apologetic. We need to be puffing our chests out and saying this is great, you’re missing out.”
A neglected industry
Chair, Kris asked attendees why have coaches been so neglected as a method of transport, and why coaches have ‘suddenly disappeared from our transport planning.’
Peter Bradley, Director of Administration and Development at the London Tourist Coach Operators Association, responded: “One of the problems is in cities and large towns, coaches are perceived as being a problem rather than a solution. I think that’s partly down to the perception of what coach brings. People see them as being rather large and polluting and don’t understand the benefits of what they are bringing to the town or city.
“What we need to do to turn that around is engage with local authorities to get that perception turned around, so they’re almost knocking on our doors to provide those facilities.”
Chris Hardy said the perception of coach can vary from authority to authority. “Some have worked out the coach is of benefit, and some haven’t,” he said.
“When local business representatives start asking about coach provision, we have more success. Authorities need to realise the coach is not just about leisure, it is used for all sorts of reasons. It is an education issue.”
Tony Caccavone added: “I don’t think there is a strong enough national voice promoting the benefits of coach.”
Good interchanges
Simon Earles, Planning and Sustainability Director at Bristol Airport said: “Bristol Airport is the ninth largest airport in the UK and has grown every year for the last two decades. Our public transport mode share has steadily increased entirely based on our partners operating coach and bus services, and that continues to be the case.
“The big barrier we believe for our further growth is our own capacity for facilities. Over the next three years we will be spending £10m on a new multi-modal interchange.”
Noting that a lot had been said about bad coach facilities, Simon asked: “Where do you see great examples of interchange?”
Chris Hardy responded: “I would point to Heathrow.
“It has a single sales desk, instead of a different desk for each operator, and the staff are Heathrow staff and are part of the Heathrow experience. It is all being sold through one channel and passengers get their optimal journey.”
A different approach
Mark Venables, Managing Director of Megabus, commented: “Something we have done at Megabus in the last 18 months is move away from a price point of £1. It was a brilliant marketing hook, but it was a 15 year old message. The reason for doing that was to try to increase the perception of quality. The old perceptions are wrong.
“We need to do something about that, but the ‘how’ is what’s missing at the moment. Do we do some sort of joined up PR exercise?”
Agreeing with Claire Walter’s early point, he added: “An integrated transport strategy rather than just a coach strategy would achieve modal shift. We’re very open to working with colleagues, and do talk when we’re allowed to and will carry on talking.
“The infrastructure providers as well can make a lot of noise. When other people talk about coaches it makes a difference.”
Coach design
The question of whether the design of coaches is good enough was raised and Nigel Skill, in his capacity as Chair of the Guild of British Coach Operators, responded: “I don’t think the real challenge is the coach itself, it’s what you can do with it that’s the problem. From our member’s point of view, dropping passengers off where want is often a huge challenge, as is finding somewhere to park the coach. Simple things like that make coach access very difficult in a large number of destinations.
“We need local politicians to embrace and welcome coaches more.”
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