Contradiction.

More people than ever seem to use long distance coaches and yet the service provided has deteriorated steadily over the years. When I first started travelling fro Exeter to Scotland in the mid 1980s you had a direct service to Glasgow that only stopped in Bristol and Preston to change drivers and drop and pick up passengers. The coches had an on board hostess service and showed films and the journey took about eight hours. Now, you have to change in Birmingham if you go by day, their is no hostess service and you have to put up with rushed meals in service stations, and if you travel overnight you have to be prepared for a twelve hour journey. No amount of cheap internet ticket offers can disguise the fact that the service is worse and that the service only survives because it is cheap, if anything but cheerful.