The Greenline coach is unfortunately not included in the £2 bus fare scheme. A single on the Greenline will cost you over £10.

I know 724 is a Greenline that only costs £2 from Heathrow to Harlow..... So I'm not so sure about what you just said here🤔 But now that I see from gov.uk, 755/757 is not included in £2 fee

The 724, though advertised as a Greenline service, is actually a normal single-decker bus, not a coach like the 755/757. This might explain the large difference in fares.

That's really interesting! When did the new bus station in Northampton open?

​@@ItsAllAboutTheJourney March 2014, they did have a bit of a problem when it first opened 😂

Thanks so much for the suggestions, I really appreciate your feedback! A Freedom Pass will be valid on every single one of the buses featured on this trip. I'll definitely add in the duration of the journey, a few others have suggested this too.

We’ll see how the current Labour government improve bus services. If England is able to keep the £2 bus fair cap, then there is hope. Otherwise, buses were starting to get expensive before the scheme.

By "Tory Scum land", I assume you're referring to the area southwest of London (much of which now votes Lib Dems, I wonder why!) Bus routes around this area are undoubtedly much better than they are likely to have been before with better network coverage and more frequent and pleasant services, but there's still a lot of improvement needed in my opinion. I hope we don't start to see bus route cuts around this area, as for a lot of people this will remove their only viable means of public transport.

Thanks for your support! You'll have to wait and see - we may have got as far as Leeds, we may not...

I think you may be remembering the similarly named MK1, which also runs between Luton and Milton Keynes via the M1. This route is operated by Stagecoach and still runs today alongside the X1 (which only began in July 2024). Can imagine that would have been quite an exciting experience - there aren't many places in the UK where local buses run along the motorway! The only other instances I can think of are the X80 running over the Dartford Crossing, and the A10/102 along the M4 Spur to Heathrow.

Yes, I think you're right! How confusing having different services operating the same route with almost identical route numbers.

Of course, the whole trip will cost considerably more than £2, but each individual bus fare will cost no more than £2 - I did not intend for the title to be misleading, apologies if it's come across this way.

I would love to try the Coastliner route - I didn't get a chance to try it this time unfortunately, but I did get to try another premium-feeling route by Transdev Blazefield later on in the trip (not revealing too much!)

I could indeed have got towards Peterborough, but that's not exactly where I was headed for...

A few people have suggested this now - for future parts I'll be sure to include the journey time onboard each bus. Thank you for the suggestion!

Yep, just local buses. Designated coach services (which are not part of the £2 fare scheme) are not allowed!

That's amazing - there are some really long routes you can take for just £2. A train fare from Heathrow to Harlow could be as much as £50 one way...

@ItsAllAboutTheJourney I was surprised to find an airport route included but apparently there are a few bus routes around Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton & Stansted all accepting the £2 fare !!

Almost all buses around airports will accept a £2 bus fare. A lot of users of buses around airports are actually airport/airline workers themselves, airline passengers using local buses are a minority. It would be unfair to charge these people a premium just to get to work. On the other hand, some bus services (such as the Hotel Hoppa services around Heathrow, for example) are extortionately priced, though these are aimed at hotel users, who would be more or less happy paying a £10 bus fare for a £300 a night hotel around Heathrow (a reminder that travel on all official London buses around the Heathrow terminal/hotels area is free!)

*Grafham, FFS

I see, thanks for the info. Come to think of it I've seen signs for "Grafham Water" on my drives up the A1 too.

Myself and a few others in the community believe that Sullivan buses aren't telling the full story in their press release. Sullivan Buses have been under poor management for many years, with poor staff retention and dreadfully maintained buses and frequencies. One theory is that TfL were withholding payments from Sullivan as a financial penalty, and that the "meeting" Sullivan had with TfL may have been called by TfL implicitly suggesting them to end their service in London. I don't want to give out incorrect information and this is all obviously speculation, but I don't think Sullivan are telling the full story in their press release.

That sounds like an interesting trip! Wonder how much the network's changed since then.

@@ItsAllAboutTheJourney X7 has been split at Northampton. The local bus to my old house in Nuneaton no longer runs, but there is still a service on another route so the journey would still be possible. The 97 Luton-MK no longer runs (it was subsidised by Virgin Trains) but obviously MK1, X1 and others exist to make the same connection.

The total figure is the amount spent after boarding the bus - apologies if it's not clear. I get free bus travel on my Oyster card on London buses, normally it will cost you £1.75 for a single journey.

@@ItsAllAboutTheJourney No worries :) Thank you for clarifying.

We completely forgot about the Greenford loop - though it would be easy to add onto the end. If you want to factor it in add another 30 minutes to the time!

Thank you! Interestingly even on Horsham/Brighton-Peterborough/Cambridge services, only the front first class section is classified. The rear first class is declassified despite it being exactly the same on both ends.

@@ItsAllAboutTheJourney ohhhh i see! I didnt even know there was one at the back, i was thinking of the front one

Interesting point you've raised there. It's very possible that since the £2 bus fare scheme was introduced, some short distance fares which originally were less than £2 have increased in price. Nevertheless, it's nice to have a unified fare system so you know that any bus you go on will cost no more than £2.

Bude is a beautiful place

@@ItsAllAboutTheJourneyAfter Northampton if you got the X7 would’ve taken you into Leicester, 127 to Loughborough, then 1 into Nottingham

Quite a one stop journey from St Budeaux Square to Victoria Road St Budeaux was £2.40 (the hill is steepish when your knee was shot off in Bosnia-Herzegovinja) Now it's £2. Your right about the Bude thing. And Konsel Kernow (the council), Karyan rag Kernow (the devolved bus contractor) and Go~South West the operator have colluded to cut the through double deckers buses to Bude with many now turning at Callington or Launceston as they say it's no longer financially viable. If they actually started charging non disabled pensioners say under 76's and only gave FREE travel in Devon and Cornwall to council tax/ratepayers we might actually have the revenue to improve the service and cut fares for fare payers. But the selfish pensioners just want something for nothing and get the 12-65 year old to pay for it.

I do agree with your point here that more money needs to be spent on bus services like this, particularly in Cornwall where ridership is low but dependency on buses high, but I wouldn't say it's fair to call all pensioners without disabled passes selfish for getting free travel. A huge number of elderly people, whilst not being "disabled", may still experience significant difficulty walking even short distances; it will give them more peace of mind to know that they can take the bus (and also reduce financial pressure on those who may be struggling). It shouldn't be up to 60-76 year olds to keep bus services profitable in my opinion. It's up to the government to give councils enough money to fund a proper bus service.

Looking forward to sharing the following episodes too - there's a lot to uncover! The Northampton incident happened late at night (about 12am-1am) after a long delay between Crewe and Rugby. We weren't supposed to stop at Northampton at all but had to so that the crew didn't work overtime. There were no replacement buses available, so Avanti paid for the cost of the taxi home for me and my family which was nice, particularly as I don't think they're legally obliged to in cases of disruption that aren't their fault.

@@ItsAllAboutTheJourney glad to hear you didn't get stung with it. They absolutely do have to get you to your destination.

Thank you! London to Exeter is amazing for one day - I'll definitely check out your video this evening. Look forward to sharing future episodes!

The official record is 33 minutes and 37 seconds www.explorerticket.co.uk/tubechallenge/alllinetop.htm . and my best time is 41 minutes 15 seconds. This was actually quite a poor run of all 11 tube lines - we got quite unlucky with our waiting times. Beyond running as fast as you can and knowing the correct carriage to be in, there is a huge element of luck involved; to get a time below 40 minutes you need to have a train in less than 1 minute every time you get to a platform - no amount of planning or timetable-checking can account for this.

@@ItsAllAboutTheJourney of course yeah. 33 minutes is unreal

You can get a bus from Leeds to Scarborough for £2 single fare.

Thank you for your kind words! Travelling Turtle's videos were a big inspiration for my bus challenge videos. Tokyo's trains are a fascinating system and I can't wait to return to Japan in the future. Looking forward to sharing and editing more videos from this journey!

My apologies, Greater London is the administrative name of the region with its 32 boroughs.

London usually refers to the whole thing as you can see on road signs, the borough’s being London boroughs, transport for London, etc. the specific square mile area is ‘the city of London’ or just ‘the city’. You wouldn’t exactly say parliament isn’t in London just because it isn’t in the city of London

@@vadosegalaxy1597 no parliament is in westminster

@@BIGV710 yes it’s in Westminster but Westminster is in London

@@vadosegalaxy1597 no it is not its in greater london get your facts right

Thank you! That's a good idea - I'll see if I can include this in future episodes.

Thanks for your support! Glad you enjoyed the video :)

I really hope that the £2 bus fare is retained after December, considering its popularity among passengers. Even the bosses of large transport companies like Stagecoach are calling on the government to keep the £2 fare scheme as it's drawn so many more passengers to the bus. Bus prices before the scheme were spiralling out of control - I once paid £5.50 for a single fare between Hatfield and Welwyn Garden City, which is more expensive than a peak-hour train ticket.

It Will probably be 5.99 , I was shocked to see Specsavers changed their reglazing fee from £30 to £75 in One year, everything is getting way too expensive in the UK, if I went back to Asia I could live like a millionaire

Interesting, thanks for the information! I contacted Diamond Bus about the incident but am still yet to receive a reply, over 4 months on.

Hi there! I've got a nice route for you with some personal recommendations. It's quite a detour but necessary because there are so few buses running between Cambridge and Norwich. From Central London, you could get the 113 up to Edgware. The 113 is likely one of the fastest ways to get out of London by bus as it spends a lot of time on the dual carriageway. From Edgware get the 614 up to Hatfield. Again a nice fast route whilst allowing you to see a little of countryside Hertfordshire. From Hatfield you could get the 610 or X10 up to Luton. These have just received a set of brand new buses. Then get the MK1 up to Bedford and the 28 over to Kimbolton. Kimbolton is a pretty little village but do plan to be here before 2pm as the last bus out of Kimbolton is at 2:30pm. Then get the 400 to Huntingdon Bus Station, run by the local operator Dews Coaches. This was a really friendly bus route where everyone seemed to know each other. The last bus on this route leaves Kimbolton at 2:30pm so make sure you're there before then. Then get the 904 to Peterborough Bus Station. A stylish single decker running along the course of the old Great North Road adjacent to the A1 for most of its route. Then get the "excel" bus route between Peterborough and Norwich, via Wisbech, Kings Lynn and Dereham. A frequent and pleasant bus route with one of the most comfortable interiors I've had on any bus. The stretch between Peterborough and Norwich takes almost 3 hours but is still pleasant. This is theoretically possible to do in one day (though you'd have to get up very early in the morning and arrive quite late at night.) Take a look at the first two parts of my first bus challenge which I did in 2023, where I followed quite a similar route: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pWXZh6yfg5WohZo Alternatively, if you're running a bit late for the 400 or don't want to risk it, from Northampton there's an X4 route which will take to Peterborough in just over 2 hours via Corby. This is a larger detour but the buses on the X4 are much more frequent. Hope this helps - Norwich is a bit of an annoying place to get to by bus so a direct route is almost impossible.

@ItsAllAboutTheJourney Thank you ever so much for typing such a long lengthy reply, I really do appreciate it . I'm not sure if I can make the journey in one day but I will give it a good try . Will be in about 2 weeks time as I'm a little busy right now. Thanks again Paul.

@ItsAllAboutTheJourney My 2nd bus would be the 321 which will get me to new Cross.

Glad you found it helpful - hope you enjoy your trip!

@@KurnazTilki-v4s see how much a coach returning to london might be - or even the train

The thought of deep fried rice coated in batter... That sounds like it would have been a very fun trip - guess it would have been much harder to plan a trip like that back then - with paper timetables and booklets? (I don't want to insinuate your age!) It's only very recently that bus companies have been posting timetables on the internet to a good and consistent standard; with the dawn of bus tracking only in the past 5 years or so.

Oooh - sounds exciting! There are some fantastic bus companies in Kent/Sussex (Metrobus, Brighton and Hove etc.) so I'd love to sample them. I'm quite busy with university in the coming months, but in the future, perhaps we can see how far west we can get from London, or maybe south/east into France or Belgium...

@@ItsAllAboutTheJourney I think you should try from central london and see how far you can get via kent (arriva and stagecoach) and sussex (brightin and hove etc)

I didn't realise that, it is indeed! There are plans to extend west towards Cambourne via the Colleges, and also north towards Waterbeach from Cambridge North too.

Sullivan do indeed do the £2 bus fare scheme now, which surprised me a little. The last time I travelled with them between Potters Bar and St Albans the single fare was £3.95, almost double... I'm not sure how long Sullivan's commercial operations will survive having lost all their London routes. None of their commercial routes seem particularly well used. I completely agree, the Temsa Safaris were kept in fantastic condition with a very smooth ride and comfortable seats. The Temsa Safaris used on the X1 are the very same buses which were used on the X6 until July 2024. They're now living a happy life at Milton Keynes depot.

The Coastliner is a fantastic route, and a very comfortable one too. I didn't get a chance to ride it on this trip, but I'd love to ride it end to end from Leeds to Whitby - such varied scenery from the historic urban landscapes of York and Leeds to barren moorland close to Whitby. I wonder if this is the longest route you can take on the £2 single fare.

@enricomonti156 Sounds like I just have to do this journey :-)

@@ItsAllAboutTheJourney it is. If you go on the Whitby-bound journey, make sure that you sit on the left side on the upper deck as there are some nice views of the village of Goathland, including its railway station, now part of the North Yorkshire Moors Heritage Railway. Goathland and its station were used as a set for the Hogsmeade scenes of the third Harry Potter movies

Wow, those sound like super fun trips! You do unfortunately have to make a few detours. The buses up the east coast do get a little sparse between Yorkshire and Teesside which is a little annoying.

@@ItsAllAboutTheJourney York to Newcastle is reasonably easy, and you can make it very scenic by using the Coastliner, and Arriva run buses direct between Scarborough and Middlesbrough and GNE between there and Newcastle making it a good way to fast track up. Did have to go through hull to get to York though 😛

@@benttwiggy5940 This is one of the only ways you can get up towards Newcastle by bus. I took a slightly different route to get north as you may see!

Currently it looks like the £2 single bus fare will be discontinued on the 31st Dec 2024. However the £2 bus fare has dramatically changed peoples' opinions and usage of buses so much, that even bosses of transport giants like Stagecoach are urging the government to keep the £2 bus fare. When private sector companies are urging the government to continue the scheme, you sure know it's profitable too. (Not sure if the same can be said about smaller, local operators though.) This is a really positive sign, I can see the £2 bus fare scheme continuing past the end of 2024 and becoming a semi-permanent thing.

Can't wait to share them!

@@ItsAllAboutTheJourney Any ideas when next one will be ready

@@UKTransportExplorer I'll try to get the next one out in the next couple weeks or so. I'm very busy at the moment with university so my upload schedule is likely to be patchy at best.

@@ItsAllAboutTheJourney No worries mate.

It's a real shame that there are so few of these cheap, comfortable coach links. I'm not sure how long Arriva's X1 will last, though usage seemed high when I travelled. A few more passengers got on at Dunstable as well from as a few villages on the way, so the bus had around 25-30 people on by the time we reached Milton Keynes. I believe some local bus services in the far north of Scotland are operated by coaches, though Scottish buses are not part of the £2 fare cap (which is only in England and Wales).

Thank you! Correct, Waterloo East does indeed have lettered platforms. Also all Elizabeth line stations.

I'm sorry if this caused any confusion - it may have been better to state "Haneda" in the captions rather than "Tokyo". The assumption is that viewers are aware of JAL's London to Tokyo flight serving Haneda Airport rather than Narita. I agree with you that Haneda's definitely more convenient to access Tokyo, but having flown from both Haneda's T3 and Narita's T2, I actually prefer Narita. While it's a bit more dated than Haneda, it's still maintained magnificently and the passenger experience felt more pleasing and premium compared to Haneda, even if it is marketed the other way round. What do you think?

@@ItsAllAboutTheJourney your viewers are probably quite international, so they have all different starting points and will therefore land different as well. Including more information is in that case probably a good idea. It’s a growing channel. Narita is indeed a good airport. It’s very smooth and fast. I actually have to land there most of the times I go to Japan, and it’s always in the evening. The long way to my accommodation is in that case sometimes annoying. I also don’t really recommend it to first timers, since they are pretty hyped finally arriving in Japan, and then the first thing to do before the fun starts, is a super long train ride (but that’s absolutely a problem of luxury). For the departure from Japan, the fast and smooth Narita airport definitely is attractive, but then the food options for your last meal in Japan are again better at Haneda. No of this both options is really bad, just in case of fast access to and from central Tokyo, Haneda is ahead. Nice video btw. I often fly most of the time with Qatar Airways, so my last time JAL is a while ago. So it was nice to check how it is at the moment before I use them later this year.