Media Centre

National Express expands Bristol 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 Bristol to London to meet rising customer demand.

The 040 service from Bristol Marlborough Street Coach Station to London Victoria now has an additional 24 services per week in each direction. The new services focus around the busy weekend period running regularly from 0340 until 21.00. The number of daily services from Bristol to London Earls Court and Victoria Coach Station on National Express now totals 28.

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 Bristol 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 connect the two cities in a little over two hours providing our customers who range from shoppers, business users or tourists, with an excellent, safe and frequent Bristol 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 Bristol to London, would save 16g of CO2, which is the equivalent of boiling 293 kettles!

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Additional services are detailed below:

Bristol Bus Station – London Victoria:

• 07:20 (Saturday only) / 08:05 (Saturday only)
• 10:15 (Saturday only)
• 13:15 (Friday & Sunday only)
• 14:15 (Friday and Sunday only)
• 19:10 (Friday, Sunday and Monday only)
• 21:00 (Friday, Sunday and Monday only)

London Victoria – Bristol Bus Station:

• 01:00 (Saturday, Sunday and Monday)
• 11:30 (Saturday only)
• 12:30 (Saturday only)
• 14:30 (Saturday only)
• 22:00 (Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday)

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.