I’ve made several postings about the continuing uncertainty of these services and whether I would continue to have a job driving a megabus. I also made rather scathing mention of how employees learn of changes by tracking things on the internet whilst being kept in the dark by their employers. At last we have official confirmation of the changes and what it means for the drivers. The good news, for my depot, is that everyone currently driving these routes will continue to have a line on the new megabus rota. Sadly, our colleagues at the Portsmouth depot who shared megabus duties with us, will all lose their megabus duties as the Portsmouth depot will no longer provide any megabus service.

The fudamental shift behind all this is the joining of forces between Megabus and Megatrain. Previously the two were totally seperate with a megatrain booking site and a megabus booking site. No reference to the other was made on either site. It doesn’t matter now whether you type www.megabus.com or www.megatrain.com into your browser, you end up at the same website which offers both bus and train journeys for the input dates. It’s important at this point to understand who megabus and megatrain previously saw as their target customers.

For megabus it’s very definitely been those on the tightest of budgets, primarily university students. In all the major towns and cities megabus serve they always have a stop at the local university. In Bournemouth we stop at the Talbot Campus, in Southampton at the Portswood campus plus, the new Solent University campus. In Portsmouth we stop at the University even though it’s only 3 minutes after the first departure point! Megabus have always made it simple for students to use them. So successfully that National Express who previously didn’t have stops at most of the campuses I listed now do! Never having been involved with megatrain I can’t so definately spell out who their target traveller is, it’s also difficult to try and deduce! The trouble with Megatrain was that it was difficult to have a day out in London using them – the first service left well into the morning and the return had to be done before the evening rush hour or left until much later. It just wasn’t possible to have a ‘sensible’ day out in London. Pricing showed that whilst megatrain tickets were good value compared to regular rail fares (astronomic!) they didn’t come anywhere near as cheap as coach travel from either megabus or National Express.

The new combined megabus/megatrain website offers, from 25 March, one megabus a day from Bournemouth to London and three megatrain services – Monday to Saturday. On a Sunday no megatrain services are offered but the megabus runs three times. I haven’t the tiniest on inklings as to why Stagecoach see this as the way to go! It seems to me that it will kill off megabus use in this area whilst doing nothing to increase megatrain use. Here’s why I think this.

Six days a week the only megabus from Bournemouth leaves at 06:00, the one from Portsmouth at 05:50 This is half an hour earlier than the first of three alternatives previously. It’s very definitely a student unfriendly time!! If students don’t want that they have two choices, take a National Express later in the day from the Uni or, go to the rail station and pay two or three times more for a megatrain ticket. Both megabus and megatrain are modelled on ‘the earlier you book the cheaper it will be’. The first ‘x’ seats cost a £1 in the case of megabus, the next ‘y’ a slightly higher price and so on.

A few moments ago I priced a Bournemouth to London journey for 20 April (over 1 month in advance):-

06:00 Megabus £4.00
06:10 National Express £6.00

10:59 Megatrain £12.00
11:40 National Express £1.00

Have I missed something important here in thinking Stagecoach will lose more customers than they gain by substituting previously cheap megabus fares with much higher megatrain fares?