What’s in a name? National Express to become Mobico

For almost 50 years, the National Express brand has been practically synonymous with coach travel in the UK.

Yet now the company behind the service has revealed that it is ditching the name for “Mobico Group”, in a corporate rebrand that it says reflects its “multimodal operations, global reach and future ambitions”.

However, the National Express brand, which was celebrated in a hit song in 1999 by The Divine Comedy, is not disappearing from roads and motorways. The company has said that its national coach network will retain the name, which dates from 1974.

The change, which takes effect next month, instead applies to the London-listed parent company that also runs bus, rail and coach services in countries including the US, France, Morocco and Bahrain.