National Express vs Flixbus vs Megabus - which of the three is better?

[Bletchleyite]

Shows how much I know about buses and coaches then eh? I could swear Stagecoach still had a hand in Citylink in January though, with one of their coaches making a very unplanned substitute on route 11 out of Inverness.

Wiki seems to suggest they still are. Perhaps it was a proposed sale that didn't happen.

Edit: seems the share was actually increased! Thus Stagecoach still sort of owns a share in Megabus via Citylink.

Stagecoach sells Megabus to Scottish Citylink

The transport group's share of its Citylink joint venture will also increase as part of the deal

www.insider.co.uk

Stagecoach has confirmed the future of its inter-city coach businesses, Megabus and Falcon.


Both Megabus and Falcon are Stagecoach’s 100% owned inter-city coach operations.



In addition, the Perth-based group has a joint venture, Scottish Citylink, with international transport group, ComfortDelGro. This is responsible for the Scottish Citylink express coach network and Megabus branded services to, from and within Scotland.


Stagecoach and ComfortDelGro have now reached agreement for Stagecoach to sell the following businesses to Scottish Citylink:

• the Megabus retail platform and customer-service business, which sells and markets inter-city coach services in England and Wales.
• Falcon South-West, which retails tickets for the coach route between Plymouth and Bristol Airport.

In return, Stagecoach's share of the Citylink joint venture will increase from 35% to 37.5%.


Around 30 Stagecoach employees are expected to transfer to Scottish Citylink as part of the sale. There is no change to the operation of the inter-city coach services themselves.



Stagecoach chief executive Martin Griffiths said: "Inter-city coach has a positive future as a greener and better value alternative to the car and as the UK rail network continues to see rising fares and operational challenges.

 

[JonathanH]

Which of the operators‘ have things like tables and plug/USB sockets? Also which are most susceptible to substitute coaches that will presumably have none of these issues?

Most coaches of all three operators now have plug/USB sockets.

 

[johncrossley]

Most coaches have USB sockets, but often they don't work. I wouldn't rely on them.

 

[JonathanH]

Most coaches have USB sockets, but often they don't work. I wouldn't rely on them.

Reliability is better than it was. The last Megabus vehicle I was on had had a new fitting. The National Express Levante 3s have a much better fitting in the seat back than the Levante 2 fitting between the seats.

 

[317 forever]

Megabus is no longer part of the Stagecoach group and uses independent operators in the same way National Express does. I therefore don't see much of a difference in "poshness" between the two.

On the website some journeys but not others are classed as operated by Megabus. These tend to be the traditional blue Stagecoach Megabus coaches.

I used one from Liverpool to Manchester yesterday afternoon. The previous journey was late and was run by an independent.