Outlying coach stations for London?

[Bletchleyite]

It's raised on the National Express thread that coaches spend a long time getting through to Victoria from the west and north (which is where most of them originate). This does raise a bit of a question - why do we have coaches traipsing slowly across central London? Would it make more sense to have outlying coach stations for each of the two key directions (M1-bound and M4-bound) and perhaps keep Victoria for southbound and international? Quite a few major world cities (particularly in Asia where coach travel is very popular) do this - both for cheaper land and for faster runs to the motorway.

If we did do that, where should they go? Hammersmith for the M4 direction maybe? Stanmore or Golders Green (already a stop) for the M1? Good Tube or Elizabeth Line connectivity would seem essential - and is land available?

 

[JonathanH]

Victoria isn't as bad a location as others in central London. It has relatively easy access to the M4, M40 and M1. It is only really heading out to the east where there is a problem.

There is already a coach departure point at Golders Green, which is useful for the bottom of the M1. Heathrow is good for the M4. In practice, given the premium on fares, there is less motivation to board at Heathrow if you aren't getting off a plane.

In practice, getting off a coach at Golders Green rather than Victoria only saves a substantial amount of time for a limited number of places.

 

[gray1404]

Customers enjoy being able to connect at one coach station and avoid the travel across London which the train mandates.

 

[JonathanH]

Yes, you would have thought that if there was a more efficient or better place to terminate coaches, Flixbus or Megabus might have decided not to run to Victoria, but both do so.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Customers enjoy being able to connect at one coach station and avoid the travel across London which the train mandates.

Certainly that's useful, but most people are going to London, not interchanging there.

 

[WideRanger]

I have thought for a long time that, if Victoria Coach Station were to close (either to use the land, or to reduce the number of vehicles in Central London), Stonebridge Park would be a good place for a replacement station. Close to both the M1 and A40, quite a lot of brownfield land, and a section of Tube into Central London that is not particularly busy.

 

[MCR247]

I have thought for a long time that, if Victoria Coach Station were to close (either to use the land, or to reduce the number of vehicles in Central London), Stonebridge Park would be a good place for a replacement station. Close to both the M1 and A40, quite a lot of brownfield land, and a section of Tube into Central London that is not particularly busy.

I’d argue it’s a section of tube into London that doesn’t have a particularly high frequency to disperse passengers

 

[The exile]

I have thought for a long time that, if Victoria Coach Station were to close (either to use the land, or to reduce the number of vehicles in Central London), Stonebridge Park would be a good place for a replacement station. Close to both the M1 and A40, quite a lot of brownfield land, and a section of Tube into Central London that is not particularly busy.

Get it as close to Old Oak Common as possible for Elizabeth Line interchange (probably more important than HS2)

 

[RT4038]

Yes, you would have thought that if there was a more efficient or better place to terminate coaches, Flixbus or Megabus might have decided not to run to Victoria, but both do so.

Well, quite. You can be assured that this subject has been well debated, by both the operators and TfL. I think the issues could be summarised as:

• There is no obvious place to try this within existing infrastructure
• The margins running express coach services are thin, and the operators do not have the resources to acquire suitable land and build a facility/the facilities.
• The costs of doing so in the right place [to disperse and collect passengers] (as opposed to a compromise location that would please neither operators or passengers) would likely be astronomical. Especially as multiple facilities would probably be required.
• Any non-Central facility could not serve all routes/demands, so interchange would be compromised plus the additional costs of multiple control requirements
• the risk of the new facilities destroying the economics of the operation are too great (multiple control functions / passenger loss etc), that no operator wishes to contemplate, with the possibility of 'white elephant' facilities being left.
• Wherever the location(s) are, there needs to be convenient onward connections to all parts of London. Reliance on tube trains to convey large quantities of passengers, mostly with luggage, is not going to be thought well of.

Megabus did try an experiment in this with their London-Norwich service, with was taking nearly 30% of the running time to travel from Stratford to Victoria, by terminating it at Stratford. However, the only stop available was by Stratford International Station, which is not particularly convenient for Stratford main line station. The efficiency gain was good - it enabled an additional round trip to be operated each day with the vehicles, but there was an amount of passenger loss as a result, and the overall economics of the service were not improved sufficiently to sustain a long term future.

EasyBus also tried a Hendon Central-Milton Keynes service, without success.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I’d argue it’s a section of tube into London that doesn’t have a particularly high frequency to disperse passengers

A coach or two full of passengers is a very small number. While I wouldn't suggest that, somewhere only served by a few buses an hour wouldn't even struggle.

 

[stuu]

My local independent coach service (Berry's, Somerset), has used Hammersmith for decades, and has added extra services over the years. Timetabled to be an hour quicker than National Express to Vic, but that does stop at Heathrow which must add half an hour to the journey

 

[Bletchleyite]

EasyBus also tried a Hendon Central-Milton Keynes service, without success.

That was never going to work simply because of the cheapness and quality/frequency of the rail service. National Express tried it with full size coaches too going via the City to Victoria and that failed too. I think there was a bit of harking to the Oxford Tube without realising that the huge tourist and student volumes keep that going, Milton Keynes has neither. (And indeed the massive improvement in quality of the rail service from Oxford to London has killed one of the coach services and is damaging the Tube's viability).

You'd need to do something like Manchester-Hendon Central to get a good idea. (Yes, that has a quality, high frequency rail service, but is still one of the UK's biggest coach markets due to the high price of rail travel).

 

[duncombec]

Haven't there been articles in recent issues of Classic Bus about London's former coach stations, particularly Kings Cross?

It does seem that most passengers using the coach are aware of the situation and take it into account - or as others comment, use other existing boarding points such as Golders Green. Similarly, it's notable how many passengers seem to remain on the coach/bus through to Victoria on services like the Oxford Tube or Reading Buses 702.

 

[RT4038]

That was never going to work simply because of the cheapness and quality/frequency of the rail service. National Express tried it with full size coaches too going via the City to Victoria and that failed too. I think there was a bit of harking to the Oxford Tube without realising that the huge tourist and student volumes keep that going, Milton Keynes has neither. (And indeed the massive improvement in quality of the rail service from Oxford to London has killed one of the coach services and is damaging the Tube's viability).

The Oxford-London coach market decline is not just improvement in quality of rail service, it is also debilitating traffic congestion and London street disruption, as well as the operator that bowed out making some commercial error. EasyBus also did not work because it is extremely expensive to market to potential passengers (with a lengthy period before a worthwhile harvest), esp. in London, and also I do not think people want the faff, nor trust in, catching coaches at random suburban stops. (Residents of the immediate area will have no problem, but provincial people returning home / tourists etc?). Central focal points for travel should not be underestimated as the shop window / confidence for services.

You'd need to do something like Manchester-Hendon Central to get a good idea. (Yes, that has a quality, high frequency rail service, but is still one of the UK's biggest coach markets due to the high price of rail travel).

I think it unlikely that any operator would wish to risk this. (Quite apart from the logistical issues of using street stops as major pick up points, and the parking of coaches for driver breaks etc). Megabus tried the concept on Norwich-London and have a good idea as to the effects on the business. Not saying that there is an exact translation to every route, but every route will probably have its downsides to the concept - very difficult to get all the stars to line up for a perfect experiment!

 

[Bletchleyite]

The Oxford-London coach market decline is not just improvement in quality of rail service, it is also debilitating traffic congestion and London street disruption, as well as the operator that bowed out making some commercial error. EasyBus also did not work because it is extremely expensive to market to potential passengers (with a lengthy period before a worthwhile harvest), esp. in London, and also I do not think people want the faff, nor trust in, catching coaches at random suburban stops. (Residents of the immediate area will have no problem, but provincial people returning home / tourists etc?). Central focal points for travel should not be underestimated as the shop window / confidence for services.

True. Of course if there was a properly staffed, proper coach station in Hendon (or wherever) then that might be slightly different?

 

[paul1609]

True. Of course if there was a properly staffed, proper coach station in Hendon (or wherever) then that might be slightly different?

National Express use the outer stand at Golders Green Bus Station which is outside the tube station. It does have a national Express staff member and uses the station toilets. There's a good selection of coffee chains etc within a 100 yards. It could do with a destination board and some more seats but it's otherwise very useable and well used especially for the airport buses.
They also use the coach station at Westfield Stratford which is next to the back of the national rail and tube station and just down the road from Stratford International. I usually go that way to Stansted. It's easier than the Victoria line from St Pancras and can be as fast.

 

[Simon75]

Victoria has the added advantage of Victoria railway and tube station, Victoria Bus station and the Greenline bus station

 

[Bletchleyite]

Victoria has the added advantage of Victoria railway and tube station, Victoria Bus station and the Greenline bus station

There's certainly advantages. But the question is - is the extra 2 hours or so for which your vehicle and driver are tied up slowly dragging themselves across central London in both directions economic, or could the coach service be cheaper or more frequent if it just stopped somewhere just off the motorway with good onward links?

(That's basically your Coachway concept as used in e.g. Milton Keynes)

 

[paul1609]

There's certainly advantages. But the question is - is the extra 2 hours or so for which your vehicle and driver are tied up slowly dragging themselves across central London in both directions economic, or could the coach service be cheaper or more frequent if it just stopped somewhere just off the motorway with good onward links?

(That's basically your Coachway concept as used in e.g. Milton Keynes)

You're being M1 centric. Most of the north-west, Scotland and all of Western and Southern services come in to London on the M40/ M25/M4/Heathrow Axis for which Victoria isn't a bad Central London station. For the remainder, if you want to encourage a single hub interchange, you have to use Victoria even though it's not optimal. For me coming in from Kent I use the train to Waterloo East from where theres a bus outside the main station to outside Victoria Coach station every few minutes. If the coach has a north London stop I get the tube to Golders Green or Finchley Rd. For East Anglia or Stansted I get HS1 to Stratford Int.

 

[JonathanH]

You're being M1 centric

Even being M1 centric, for many journeys it only takes half an hour to get from Victoria to Hendon Way from where it is fairly quick onto the M1 for much of the day. Earls Court / Knightsbridge can be an issue for heading out to the West, but the previous poster saying it is an extra two hours for the round trip to Victoria is a bit much.

 

[markymark2000]

Rather than moving the coach stations, why can't TFL just make it quicker for buses to get into Central London? The roads with the most amount of coaches seem to have the worst infrastructure. Brent Cross - Victoria Coach Station must be dealing with hundreds of coaches each day and yet there seems to be 300 sets of traffic lights, almost no bus lanes. Where there are bus lanes, TFL have put loading bays and car parking in the lanes so the bus lanes aren't really useful at all. Constant redevelopment of the road network seems to be creating more and more congestion and constantly reduce the flow of traffic. Small lane widths which mean buses have to go much slower because they only just fit in the line and turning becomes near impossible without blocking the whole road. The whole way in which TFL treats the road network is wrong. If TFL got their act together, it wouldn't be so slow getting across London and this discussion wouldn't need to happen.

You're being M1 centric. Most of the north-west, Scotland and all of Western and Southern services come in to London on the M40/ M25/M4/Heathrow Axis for which Victoria isn't a bad Central London station. For the remainder, if you want to encourage a single hub interchange, you have to use Victoria even though it's not optimal. For me coming in from Kent I use the train to Waterloo East from where theres a bus outside the main station to outside Victoria Coach station every few minutes. If the coach has a north London stop I get the tube to Golders Green or Finchley Rd. For East Anglia or Stansted I get HS1 to Stratford Int.

There aren't that many buses from the North-west or Scotland which go via M4 other than if they stop at Heathrow en route or some limited services which run none stop from Birmingham to London. Many services have stops at either Milton Keynes Coachway or Golders Green though which somewhat forces travel down the M1.

but the previous poster saying it is an extra two hours for the round trip to Victoria is a bit much.

It's about right for some journeys. It's about 40 minutes to get from Victoria to Finchley Road and so 20 minutes to get to Brent Cross, given how bad the roads can be at times, completely plausible. Doing that both ways, could work out as 2 hours extra journey time.

Looking at various NatEx buses tracking from today during the day, it does seem to be taking 1 hour each way between Brent Cross and Victoria.

 

[paul1609]

There aren't that many buses from the North-west or Scotland which go via M4 other than if they stop at Heathrow en route or some limited services which run none stop from Birmingham to London. Many services have stops at either Milton Keynes Coachway or Golders Green though which somewhat forces travel down the M1.

I dont think either Megabus or Flixbus serve Milton keynes or Golders Green. I think in the last year only a couple of Nat Exp services Ive used stopped at MK and they had been NX services I caught from Birmingham. Most overnight services dont specify the route from Birmingham to Heathrow so they can avoid motorway closures.

 

[JonathanH]

I dont think either Megabus or Flixbus serve Milton keynes or Golders Green. I think in the last year only a couple of Nat Exp services Ive used stopped at MK and they had been NX services I caught from Birmingham.

Quite a few Flixbus and Megabus services pick up and set down at Finchley Road.

Brent Cross - Victoria Coach Station must be dealing with hundreds of coaches each day and yet there seems to be 300 sets of traffic lights, almost no bus lanes.

More recently a 20mph limit as well on the Finchley Road which slows down the coaches at times when there is free flowing traffic.

The whole way in which TFL treats the road network is wrong.

Short of knocking down property I'm not sure how they could ever really sort out an expressway for coaches.

 

[AlastairFraser]

Well, quite. You can be assured that this subject has been well debated, by both the operators and TfL. I think the issues could be summarised as:

• There is no obvious place to try this within existing infrastructure
• The margins running express coach services are thin, and the operators do not have the resources to acquire suitable land and build a facility/the facilities.
• The costs of doing so in the right place [to disperse and collect passengers] (as opposed to a compromise location that would please neither operators or passengers) would likely be astronomical. Especially as multiple facilities would probably be required.
• Any non-Central facility could not serve all routes/demands, so interchange would be compromised plus the additional costs of multiple control requirements
• the risk of the new facilities destroying the economics of the operation are too great (multiple control functions / passenger loss etc), that no operator wishes to contemplate, with the possibility of 'white elephant' facilities being left.
• Wherever the location(s) are, there needs to be convenient onward connections to all parts of London. Reliance on tube trains to convey large quantities of passengers, mostly with luggage, is not going to be thought well of.

Megabus did try an experiment in this with their London-Norwich service, with was taking nearly 30% of the running time to travel from Stratford to Victoria, by terminating it at Stratford. However, the only stop available was by Stratford International Station, which is not particularly convenient for Stratford main line station. The efficiency gain was good - it enabled an additional round trip to be operated each day with the vehicles, but there was an amount of passenger loss as a result, and the overall economics of the service were not improved sufficiently to sustain a long term future.

EasyBus also tried a Hendon Central-Milton Keynes service, without success.

This is a well-written and reasoned explanation of the factors surrounding new London coach stations - thank you.

Here's an interesting alternative scenario to explore - what if TfL sold off the site of Vic Coach Station (must be worth hundreds of millions - no?) and moved to some cheaper land in the Shepherds Bush area with better access to high speed roads? No better for Easterly or South Easterly coach routes, but the volume of passengers on the other coach roles would surely outweigh services in those directions.

 

[JonathanH]

Here's an interesting alternative scenario to explore - what if TfL sold off the site of Vic Coach Station (must be worth hundreds of millions - no?) and moved to some cheaper land in the Shepherds Bush area with better access to high speed roads?

Where did TfL propose to move the coach station to when the Victoria site was planned to be an access point for the building of Crossrail 2?

I imagine they might want to hold on to the site if that is still part of the (admittedly improbable) plan for Crossrail 2.

 

[Eyersey468]

Even being M1 centric, for many journeys it only takes half an hour to get from Victoria to Hendon Way from where it is fairly quick onto the M1 for much of the day. Earls Court / Knightsbridge can be an issue for heading out to the West, but the previous poster saying it is an extra two hours for the round trip to Victoria is a bit much.

We work on an hour to the M1 from Victoria, yes it can be done quicker if conditions are favourable but an hour is about average

 

[AlastairFraser]

Where did TfL propose to move the coach station to when the Victoria site was planned to be an access point for the building of Crossrail 2?

I imagine they might want to hold on to the site if that is still part of the (admittedly improbable) plan for Crossrail 2.

Wikipedia* says they planned to head to Royal Oak, which is close by, but Shepherds Bush makes more sense as Westfield/several tubes + overground + White City bus station are close by.

Victoria Coach Station - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"Nevertheless, several of Transport for London's leases on the station were due to expire by 2023 and proposals were made to relocate to Royal Oak, but in 2019 the move was abandoned"

 

[markymark2000]

I dont think either Megabus or Flixbus serve Milton keynes or Golders Green. I think in the last year only a couple of Nat Exp services Ive used stopped at MK and they had been NX services I caught from Birmingham. Most overnight services dont specify the route from Birmingham to Heathrow so they can avoid motorway closures.

For NatEx, if they don't serve MK, they will serve generally Finchley Road or Golders Green which forces them down the M1 and then using Finchley Road into London. If none of these places are served en route, in many cases M1 and Finchley Road is the most direct route. Overnight services heading north tend to still have Finchley Road, Golders Green, MK. Some serve Heathrow granted but most are still somewhat forced to use Finchley Road and the M1 corridor in some way. Whether that be because of stops in London or stops nearby.
Megabus & Flixbus has been answered above by JonathanH

Short of knocking down property I'm not sure how they could ever really sort out an expressway for coaches.

Reduce the number of junctions and where there are junctions, try to make it so that conflicting movements are kept to a minimal which then means more flow and more 'green time'. Do what the rest of London is doing and try to deter people from driving by blocking off junctions and forcing them to go through more side roads. Remove car parking and loading bays from bus lanes and better enforcement of red routes since the bus lanes are pretty useless on much of Finchley Road thanks to the parking, deliveries, the 'Ill only be 2 minutes' squad. You go on the A40 or A4, if there is parking, it tends to be off the main traffic lanes in laybys or in side roads, that is how Finchley Road should be. Without a complete rebuilt, it will unlikely ever be perfect, but there are steps that can be taken to improve the situation. TFL/councils seem intent on slowing everyone and everything down though.

Travelling from the M40 or M4 is so much better, you feel like you are getting somewhere rather than Finchley Road, as it's been said, it's an hour from leaving the motorway to getting to the coach station.

 

[Mikw]

Having used the 440 from Leicester a fair bit (bargain and only two hours to the outskirts of London) it is annoying to spend the hour getting into Victoria for sure.
You seem to spend a lot of time following buses, and having to stop behind them when they pick up passengers.
Perhaps the coaches would be better off not using the bus lanes at times, but then they get stuck behind cars, they can't win really.
The approx £50 saving compared to the train does soften the annoyance off the 60 minute crawl though.

 

[paul1609]

Having used the 440 from Leicester a fair bit (bargain and only two hours to the outskirts of London) it is annoying to spend the hour getting into Victoria for sure.
You seem to spend a lot of time following buses, and having to stop behind them when they pick up passengers.
Perhaps the coaches would be better off not using the bus lanes at times, but then they get stuck behind cars, they can't win really.
The approx £50 saving compared to the train does soften the annoyance off the 60 minute crawl though.

Alight at either Golders Green (outside the tube station) or Finchley Rd (down the main road about 200 yards and through the subway to the tube) its what i always do on these routes. Going north theres a large Starbucks diagonaly accros the roundabout at Golders Green, Finchley Rd Coach stop is outside a Subway. Both are in Zone 3 so if you were going to use the tube from Victoria anyway its an extra 30p off peak on contactless. nearly every service calls at one or the other.