What’s Happened to my Bus/Train/Flight ? The Canny User's Guide to Finding Your Way Around on Public Transport in UK

Editor's Note: As a frequent local bus user, I was inspired recently to write a brief guide for my website's travel page on how to get the best out of our bus and train networks . Herewith a copy for the blog - hope it's useful....Now includes some info on local UK air travel....  

Our UK public transport network has come a long way on since the days before the internet became  widely available in the late 1990s.....

Working out how to get from A to B without major trauma during those somewhat simpler times relied on having a good sense of direction, a detailed knowledge of bus/train timetables, some decent maps, a knowledge of how to read them, and being reasonably mobile. 

Timetable information was usually only available from tourist information offices, bus and train stations, etc., and only in paper form, and was quite often already out of date by the time you got hold of it. There were no digital bus signage boards for guidance, and few bus stops had timetable info. displayed at all. Only the main train stations had full display boards, and these were often out of action. 

Basically, you had to plan your journey carefully in advance, make your way to the nearest station or bus stop, cross your fingers and hope the service you wanted would actually turn up.

Nowadays we have GPS tracking on almost every public service vehicle, live digital signage at many urban bus stops and full display boards at all rail and bus stations. We also have good internet availability of bus and train timetables and journey planners from most of the service providers via their websites. Disabled passengers are catered for, with dedicated wheelchair spaces on most buses and trains and better station access.

Many of us (but not all!) now have smartphones with active network data connections which give us 'on the hoof' access to the internet. There are admittedly still quite few ‘holes’ in bus service provision, particularly in rural areas. Virtually all recent past governments have acknowledged these need to be filled if our bus network is to thrive....and attract people away from their polluting cars.

Nevertheless, the plethora of choice of how to get from A to B can become a little confusing for the novice Public Transport (PT) user, particularly if they aren’t quite sure how long a journey is likely to take, what the best route is and which modes of transport they’ll need to use. Those drivers used to relying on a nice dry car, an effective heater and their SatNav to tell them exactly where to go, and get them there in comfort, may get quite a shock if they dare to venture out of their cars – even in this day and age...particularly in January and February.

This brief article is designed to minimise the trauma by providing some basic info. on how best to plan your route on public transport and then track your chosen services to see when they are likely to arrive on time…and find out how far they’ve got along their route when they don't.

Bus Services

Local routes

As already discussed, most of the major bus providers have their own websites with journey planners. Many also provide ‘real time’ info on their services. What you don’t get from any of them is an overall picture of all the services available for a chosen route, or indeed a reliable tracker to check where all the  available services are located at a given time.

Naturally enough, each provider will favour their own services, so the picture you get from their site will be biased towards their services and won’t always give a complete picture.

For planning your journeys with all the options considered, I’d recommend the Traveline site. This has no provider bias and provides a relatively simple interface for casual journey planning on local UK buses and trains. It is designed to recommend the easiest route to your destination at a given time, but also has a good range of filtering options you can select e.g. ‘bus only’ for local travel where trains might be inappropriate. It also gives you a series of possible routes and times to choose from, which you can hone to your requirements.

Once you’ve selected a journey, you get a detailed plan of the stages involved with service numbers and any intermediate waits / walks between different stops if needed. You can also get live departure boards for bus services from a particular stop, which can be very useful when you're en route. It will even provide links to maps of the local area, so you can see where the stop is located relative to the local geography.

Traveline will also give you detailed  info on national coach services, if relevant to your journey. It won’t however, give you much detail for any train services on the suggested route – see below for the best options for planning and monitoring a train journey.

Although the live times provided for each bus stop by Traveline are useful, they won’t always help if your bus is late – normally you just get info about services to come, and once the due time for a service has passed, it just disappears without trace from the schedule. The same usually applies to physical ‘at stop’ digital signage. 

What really can be a help to the worried bus user when their chosen service fails to turn up at the appointed time, is a live map of all the services in their area, showing exactly where they are and how far behind schedule they may have fallen. The user then has a much better idea of whether to re-plan their journey using another service that's actually shown as running, or just wait for the original service to arrive if it's just going to be a few minutes late. Sadly our road system is chronically over burdened by HGVs, delivery vans and private cars (often single occupancy!), often leading to delays at peak times. It's also festooned with road works, so late bus and coach services are commonplace, and are likely to remain so.

The only app with country-wide coverage that I’ve come across, which actually provides live mapping for all bus and coach services, is bustimes.org.

This is an excellent web-based tool; in addition to offering a comprehensive timetabling package, it provides a country-wide live map of all current services linked to the network and providing GPS tracking info.

Although it was designed for pcs and doesn’t offer an Android or Apple app version, it runs happily from the web on most smartphones and tablets via Chrome or Firefox browsers, and provides a wealth of info about individual services, bus types, previous and future routes, etc. Definitely a must for every serious bus traveller….provided of course they have access to a smartphone and wifi access or an active phone network connection.

One word of warning about the website live map display – not all bus services that are actually running will appear on the bustimes.org  map at any given time. This can be for a variety of reasons, and is usually because that particular vehicle isn’t currently sending GPS info to the central server. It’s therefore unwise to assume a service isn’t running if you can't see it on the live map display. I’d advise assuming it is running normally, but having a backup plan in case it doesn't arrive when expected.

The site does occasionally go down completely, but is generally reliable and available on demand.

Longer road journeys

Local buses are generally impracticable when it comes to most inter-city journeys of more than about 30 miles. There is a national coach service network, although coverage is somewhat limited, with many places either not served at all, or provided with very restricted pickup points. As a result it lacks the popularity of local services. Although generally cheaper than rail services for most journeys, coach services are not currently subject to any form of price cap, so market forces are likely to keep prices rising in future in the face of rapidly increasing costs. The large increase in wage bills due to the excessive Employer National Insurance hike imposed by Labour in Reeves' disastrous October budget is due to kick in this April, and will no doubt cause a substantial increase in coach fares this spring.

National Express are the principal long distance provider in UK, and their website does include a coach service tracker which includes past, current and future services between any 2 points with an update on the current position of the service where appropriate. They also offer concessionary coach-cards for students and the over 60s (both currently £15) which give a 1/3 discount when booking. Although it is possible to buy tickets on the day, advance booking is essential if you want to guarantee a seat on a particular service.

Fares

On the subject of bus fares, the government has decided to extend the fare cap on local bus journeys for a further year, but this time at a higher figure of £3.00. This extension is a good move; it recognises that the vast majority of local PT journeys are by bus rather than rail, and that buses probably represent the best hope of getting people out of their cars, for short journeys at least. Unfortunately there is no such cap on coach fares or indeed rail fares, which are regularly raised by above-inflation percentages each year. 

Since our 'mild but moist' UK climate and the lack of carrying capacity precludes reliance on the use of two-wheeled vehicles for most people, even for local journeys, some form of PT is necessary for those without their own cars. Coach services have restricted availability. The location of train stations and exorbitant cost of train travel usually rules rail out as a practicable way of getting around locally for most, and therefore local buses are likely to remain the most popular alternative to cars.

The main problem with the bus network at present is our ageing bus fleet, much of which dates back to the noughties or even earlier and is now showing its age. Although some new vehicles are starting to appear as the old ones conk out (look out for Arriva's new green electric buses in your area), the fleet is unlikely to be upgraded wholesale, now that franchises are being steadily withdrawn by the Labour government. Expect more breakdowns and service failures - over the next 4 years at least....Sadly, there's also no guarantee that things will get any better once everything's back in public ownership - anyone old enough to remember the old British Rail in the 'glory days' of the 1970s ? I can still remember the 'culinary challenges' of the legendary British Rail sandwiches!

Train Services

Despite the sky-high cost of train journeys in UK (by far the most expensive in Europe, and likely to remain so due to the ongoing HS2 fiasco), and their legendary unreliability due to strikes (still ongoing despite super-inflationary pay rises last year), ageing infrastructure, etc., some unfortunate travellers do regularly find themselves obliged to use the rail network.

The rail fare structure, of course,  is still a joke, defying comprehension to all but the most savvy experts due to its complexity. There is some talk of simplifying it as the remaining franchises are withdrawn and pass into public ownership,  but I wouldn't hold your breath !

Although there has been some reduction in overcrowding through the introduction of more services and provision of more rolling stock, it is arguable whether the rail consumer really gets his/her money's worth. For a start, as is the case with electricity and gas, UK rail fares are the most expensive in Europe. The billions already wasted on, and still to be gobbled up by, HS2 could well have been spent on improving most aspects of the existing network and / or reducing fares. The wastage on HS2 so far, and with substantial cost overruns no doubt yet to come, is an excessively high price to pay for getting from London to Birmingham half an hour quicker, particularly since you'll probably need to take out a 2nd mortgage to use it when it finally comes online in the mid 2030s! Sadly, HS2 will continue to divert much needed cash from the rest of the network, and few of us will ever benefit from it personally. It is also arguable as to whether it will ever stimulate growth, and it could not in any case do so now, when we really need it,  in the way that an immediate upgrade to existing lines could do. With yet another above-inflation fare increase announced this March, passenger numbers are now showing signs of dwindling, and we risk a sustainable form of transport being shunned by the travelling public on account of excessive cost.

As discussed, if you are brave (and rich!) enough to venture onto the rail network, signage at most train stations is much improved, and generally reliable. Quite a few of the main stations have had re-vamps in recent years. Journey planning is relatively  straightforward via the National Rail Enquiries (NRE website), and planners are also available from most of the individual train companies. The NRE planner also includes live departure and arrival boards for each station on the network, but like bus planners, these don’t always provide much help if your service is delayed or cancelled. 

To help you in this situation, a 'live' rail system map is available on the Tracksy website. This works by requesting a station of your choice and then displaying a diagrammatic view of the services running nearby. Clicking on the icon for a particular train service will generate a detailed itinerary showing the progress of the service from its start point and giving projected future timings on its route. It does rely on knowing your route in advance and the stations along it, and you can’t pan in and out as you can with bustimes.org,  but it is still quite useful in working out where an ‘errant’ service might have got to when it fails to turn up on time and has conveniently disappeared from the display board. Unfortunately, as for bustimes.org, there is no smartphone app, so access must be via a web browser.

Local UK AirTravel

You might think that the idea of flying anywhere within a country a size of the UK was a daft idea….but you’d be wrong. Anyone facing a long trip from one end of the country to the other, or even a shorter ‘hop’ of 200-300 miles or so might do well to look at options other than train or coach. Here’s why….

As we’ve already discussed at length, UK train fares are still the most expensive in Europe, services are often crowded and uncomfortable, with seat availability not guaranteed. The rail network is frequently beset by cancellations due to strikes, over-running engineering work, flooding, the ‘wrong kind of snow’ etc., etc., which is enough to put off all but the most resolute traveller. Long-distance coach travel, although somewhat more reliable, is patchy at best in its coverage, and is becoming more expensive by the day as travellers forsake the rails in their droves and services fill up. It’s also extremely lengthy over longer distances, as we’ll see shortly. Local service buses are obviously a non-starter for distances of more than 30 miles or so.

Some definite incentives, then, to find an alternative way to travel 'long haul'.

As an illustration of the savings that can be made, both in terms of price and time, I chose a single journey from London to Edinburgh on 24th February 2025 for comparison of the 3 methods of travel. The results were quite an eye opener, to say the least:

Train: Journey time: ca 4h30m; Cost: £89.90-£199.60 (UK Rail, standard 2nd class fare)

Coach: Journey time: 10h25m-17h20m; Cost: £20.90-£35.50 (National Express)

Air: Journey time: 1h30m; Cost: £28-£33 (EasyJet (direct flight))

Although the comparison between rail and coach shows coach still well ahead on price at least, the journey time of at least 10h 25m spent on a crowded coach certainly would not appeal to most. Perhaps the most surprising was the availability of several EasyJet direct flights taking only ca 1h30m from Gatwick for around £30 – I know which option I‘d go for if I ever wanted to make this journey!

Bargain fares like this of course aren’t universally available from all UK airports, and many of the ‘internal’ flights require connections at EU hub airports – a recent rather extreme example that appeared in the media was a UK train journey where the fare was considerably more than a flight between the 2 places in UK via Malaga in southern Spain! This shows how ridiculously out of reach and uneconomic some of our rail fares have become.

How do you spot cheap air fares and routes ? The best website I’ve found so far is SkyScanner. Although this site is primarily aimed at selling you flights, rather than being a 'pure' Traveline air journey equivalent, it does provide some useful searches for the best prices to be had between any two UK airports. Once you’ve narrowed down the options, you can compare fare offerings and timings to the equivalent rail and coach journeys.

Is it possible to track my aircraft on the day once I've selected a flight ? Yes, certainly - there are a number of good online flight tracking options - one of the most reliable (and available both as a website and a smartphone app) is FlightAware. This provides live departure and arrival info for all major airports, and presents a map of all air traffic in the vicinity. Clicking on the icon for a particular aircraft in flight will give you full details of its current flight including start time, progress so far and ETA at destination.....

All this begs the question as to why there is such a divergence between rail and air or coach on some UK journeys ? I think this probably reflects the ‘ossification’ of our rail structure, which has become an effective cartel of train operators not willing to invest in the network as their franchises come to an end, and intent on maximising profit and hence shareholder dividends in the meantime. Network Rail, responsible for maintaining the infrastructure, although in public hands, suffers from chronic under-investment, caused largely by diversion of funds to HS2 and elsewhere. The extensive grip maintained on the rail network by the more militant trade unions also makes it one of the most strike-prone industries we have in UK.

All this provides a recipe for an uncompetitive and inefficient service with an over-complex fare structure, and with little incentive for change. Contrast this with a highly competitive air travel market, which has burgeoned since the lifting of pandemic restrictions, and appears to be going from strength to strength despite environmental concerns. Operators are keen to fill empty seats to maintain returns, and have the effects of the Covid 'slump' fresh in their minds, hence the continued availability of low fares on selected routes to actively attract custom away from their competitors. 

For anyone contemplating a UK journey longer than about 200 miles, I’d therefore advise a quick look at flight options – it might surprise you…and save you time and money !

If you're someone concerned about CO2 and the environment, as many of us are nowadays, the flights you'd be using are scheduled ones and are unlikely to be full, given the low price offering, so you'll not be responsible for any 'extra' emissions. Better to fill up a scheduled service with paying passengers than have it running 3/4 empty, after all!

Final Words

I hope this brief guide to getting around on public transport is useful…as always comments and suggestions for improvement welcome. 

First published 12.1.25

Revised 7.3.25