National Express announces expansion of services across UK

Credit: National Express

National Express has announced ambitious plans to grow its network across the UK throughout spring 2023.

The coach operator has confirmed growth plans that include 15 new routes, with an emphasis on fast, frequent services connecting cities, towns and airports, taking the network’s capacity up to 11,000 journeys across the country each week. Significant investment is also being made in 130 new vehicles to add to the fleet.

The news comes following a huge surge of customers in 2022, with over 16 million people having travelled using its services – an increase of 10 million from 2021.

According to National Express, the rail strikes and rising costs for motorists have had a deepening impact on traveller behaviours, with 10% of rail users having reported switching to coach travel for better value and reliability of service. 

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Ed Rickard, Service Delivery Director for National Express UK, said: “More and more customers are turning to coach for great value, reliable and sustainable travel. It’s encouraging to see customers making the switch from other modes of transport and choosing our coaches. With our record customer satisfaction scores, they clearly like what they’ve seen, which gives us confidence that the demand is there. We’re expecting 2023 to be even busier as we roll-out our uplift in service provision, with forecasts predicting 21 million customers travelling by coach to get them where they need to be.”

National Express, which celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 2022, currently operates over 550 services across the country. The company has reported that punctuality and reliability are also the best that it has ever seen, with 90% of services having been reported as being on time.

A list of new routes has been announced, with some having already launched and others set to begin in the coming months. The routes launched in March 2023 include Luton Airport to Marble Arch, Stansted Airport to Paddington, Huddersfield to Birmingham, Grimsby to Leicester, Edinburgh to Liverpool, Glasgow to London and another Edinburgh to London route.

In addition, throughout April, May and July 2023, additional routes will be introduced, including Leicester to Derby, Hull to London, Newcastle to London and Poole to Gatwick Airport.