Coach transport in the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom has a number of intercity coach services.

Coach services generally travel further than, and do not stop as frequently as bus services. It is common, but not universal, for coach travel to require advance purchase of tickets, whereas on buses tickets are mostly bought (or, increasingly, electronic payment is made) on board. The distinction is not absolute, and some coach services, especially in Scotland, operate as local bus services over sections of route where there is no other bus service.

Coach usage in the United Kingdom is a small fraction of that of rail, which has undergone a since privatisation in the mid-1990s.

Long-distance horse-drawn stagecoach services were effectively killed by the arrival of the railways in the 1830s and 1840s, but stagecoaches and charabancs were still used for short journeys and excursions until the early years of the 20th century.

The first motor coaches were acquired by operators of those horse-drawn vehicles: for example, W. C. Standerwick of Blackpool acquired their first motor charabanc in 1911 and Royal Blue of Bournemouth acquired their first motor charabanc in 1913. Motor coaches were initially used only for excursions. In 1919 Royal Blue took advantage of a rail strike to run a coach service from Bournemouth to London. The service was so successful that it expanded rapidly. In 1920 the Minister of Transport Eric Campbell Geddes was quoted in Punch magazine as saying, "I think it would be a calamity if we did anything to prevent the economic use of charabancs" and expressed concern in parliament at the problems caused to small charabanc and omnibus operators.

The first scheduled motorcoach service to carry passengers from both ends and to and from intermediate points was the Greyhound Motors service between London and Bristol, started on 11 February 1925.

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