Media Centre

National Express expands Cardiff to London coach service

11 Mar 2008

National Express, the UK's leading coach company, has this week started to operate additional coach services from Cardiff to London to meet rising customer demand.

The 509 service from Cardiff Bus Station to London Victoria via Newport and Earls Court, now has an additional 11 services per week in each direction. The new services focus around the busy weekend period running regularly from 05:30 until 18:00. The number of weekly services from Cardiff to London on National Express now totals 88.

The timetable extension news comes as National Express Group announced a 2% rise in coach passenger numbers at their preliminary results on 28 February.

Commenting on the increase in services Neil Barker, Bus & Coach Director at National Express UK said, "National Express prides itself in responding to customer demand and changing travel needs. The Cardiff to London Victoria service is very important to us and we are delighted we are able to increase the coach timetable. National Express is able to provide our customers who range from shoppers, business users or tourists, with an excellent, safe and frequent Cardiff to London service."

Travelling to London by National Express provides excellent value for money with fares starting from £1 but it also helps cut carbon emissions. Using the measure of carbon emissions on a per passenger kilometer basis (kgCO2/pass.km), with data that have been calculated independently by the Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Management, each person travelling by coach instead of the car from Cardiff to London would save 20.79g of CO2, which is the equivalent of boiling 378 kettles!

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Additional services are detailed below:

Cardiff Bus Station - London Victoria:

• 15:00 (Friday and Sunday)

London Victoria - Cardiff Bus Station:

• 08:00 (7 days)
• 20:30 (Friday and Sunday)

Tickets are on sale now, to book please contact National Express at www.nationalexpress.com/coach or call 08705 80 80 80 or visit a National Express outlet.

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For more information, please contact:

Nicola Walker, Beth Zaltzman or Sara Jenkins,  Smarts, Tel 0121 456 3199
nicola.walker@smarts.co.uk

Notes to editors:

As Britain’s No 1 coach operator, National Express also operates a high frequency service to all major UK cities, towns and airports.  With a record number of passengers choosing to travel with National Express, the company continues to invest in high specification vehicles and state-of-art customer facilities.

Travelling by coach is the most environmentally friendly form of public transport. When you travel by National Express instead of by car, you are reducing your carbon emissions.