Byline: FRED MAWER
WHETHER you're a hard-up student, an OAP or simply someone who is fed up with paying exorbitant rail fares, you may want to investigate megabus.com.
It can get you from one end of the UK to the other - say from London to Inverness - for as little as [pounds sterling]1. The only additional cost is a 50p booking fee.
Megabus.com, operated by Stagecoach, began offering [pounds sterling]1 one-way fares on a trial basis last year between cities in Scotland. The service was expanded nationwide earlier this year and now fares from [pounds sterling]1 are available between London and 25 English, Welsh and Scottish cities, including Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Manchester and, as of today, Liverpool and Newcastle.
This so-called 'Ryanair of the roads' manages to keep fares so cheap by ensuring overheads are as low as possible.
There is no call centre - you have to book on the website. There are no tickets and pickup/drop-off points are often at bus stops to avoid coach station access charges.
Costs are further kept down by packing more passengers into fewer buses.
Compared with the biggest UK coach operator, National Express, megabus.com offers less frequent services and uses higher capacity vehicles. Its fleet is dominated by ten-year-old double-decker buses (though smarter 'bendy buses' and double-decker coaches are used on some routes).
Of course, not all fares are [pounds sterling]1 - the company says it sells 15-20 per cent of seats at this price. What you pay varies according to how long in advance you book and how popular a particular service is.
But having played around on www.megabus.com, it is clear to me that the [pounds sterling]1 fares are widely available.
Even where they are not, you can usually find a seat for [pounds sterling]2, [pounds sterling]3, [pounds sterling]5 or [pounds sterling]8 on most routes - which is still fantastic value. Top whack is [pounds sterling]12, from London-to Inverness. Apart from the 50p booking fee, there are no taxes or other hidden charges.
Megabus.com is not alone in offering bargain long-distance coach travel in the UK.
Last year, National Express began offering 'funfares' for bookings made via its website, from [pounds sterling]1 to [pounds sterling]12 one way, London to Glasgow. These fares are now available on 24 routes, mostly between London and regional cities and towns (some of the routes are the same as megabus.com's, some not).
The catch is that a relatively small number of seats on each route (although more than ten per cent, says the company) are offered at the cut-price rates.
Last, a quick mention of easyBus. The new venture from the easyJet stable recently started frequent minibus services between Hendon in north London, Milton Keynes and Luton Airport. By booking on www.easyBus.co.uk, you can pay as little as (you guessed it) [pounds sterling]1 each way. The maximum is [pounds sterling]5. But if you have a bag larger than hand luggage, you need to pay for an additional seat. More destinations in the Home Counties and along the M1 corridor are planned.
megabus.com v National Express
LAST week, I travelled from Bristol to London by megabus.com and the following day from London to Bristol by National Express. I booked the tickets on the companies' internet sites (www.megabus.com, www.nationalexpress.com) five days ahead.
COST - Megabus.com: All six services on my chosen day were available for [pounds sterling]1.
So, with the 50p booking fee, I paid [pounds sterling]1.50.
National Express: Of the 19 services from London to Bristol, seven were offered as funfares - one at [pounds sterling]1, the rest at [pounds sterling]2, [pounds sterling]3 and [pounds sterling]5. The single fare on the other services was [pounds sterling]14.50. I bought a [pounds sterling]2 funfare.
ONLINE BOOKING - Megabus.com: Uncomplicated and hassle-free. National Express: You're shown a useful calendar indicating on what days funfares are available and for how much but otherwise the website was a bit more fiddly to use than megabus.com's.
The worst feature was that once you've chosen a funfare, you're told your seat will be held for just ten minutes during which time you've got to complete your transaction, but it's hardly enough time to read the terms and conditions.
With both companies, you're sent an email confirming your booking with a reference number, which you should print off and present to the driver when you board. The system worked fine for me in both instances.
No alterations or refunds are possible on either website.
COMFORT - Megabus.com: The seats appeared to have been recently reupholstered but they were still very much traditional bus seats, with little space for your knees. Since the bus was only a third full, I was able to occupy two seats and twist sideways. But if it had been full and I'd been squashed into one seat, it would have been pretty uncomfortable for a three-hour journey.
There was a loo on board - I'm told they all have one now - but no seatbelts.
Stagecoach says none of megabus.com's double-decker buses has seatbelts, though its other vehicles do. This is because coaches and minibuses in the UK have, by law, to be fitted with seatbelts but no such requirement applies to buses.
Buses also differ from coaches in that they are subject to a 60mph speed limit.
National Express: The single-decker coach had comfy reclining seats and, even though it was three-quarters full and I had to sit next to someone, I didn't feel too cramped. There was a loo and seatbelts.
PUNCTUALITY - Megabus.com: Bristol-London services are scheduled to take three hours. We left bang on time and, despite a mysterious five-minute stop near Swindon and the bus being slow at climbing hills, we arrived 12 minutes ahead of schedule at Victoria Coach Station.
National Express: Sensibly, the timetable on the website gives different journey times for services at different times of the day, to take into account the traffic (on the London-Bristol route, it is anything from two hours 20 minutes, to three hours 40 minutes). We left on time from Victoria and arrived seven minutes ahead of schedule at Bristol Coach Station.
The journey time was 25 minutes shorter than on megabus.com but the traffic was lighter.
VERDICT
THERE and back, my trip had cost [pounds sterling]3.50 and been hitchless. It was astonishingly good value. Had I taken the train, I'd have saved around an hour each way in time but paid anything from [pounds sterling]29.50 to [pounds sterling]94 return.
The rock-bottom fares were far more widely available with megabus.
com than with National Express.
But National Express was clearly comfier and, unlike megabus.com, all its coaches have seatbelts. That said, few passengers on my National Express journey bothered to wear them.
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