National Express West Midlands
Bus operator in the West Midlands of England
National Express West Midlands (NXWM) is a bus operator in the West Midlands of England. It is a subsidiary of Mobico Group (formerly National Express Group).
NXWM operates services in Birmingham, Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall, Wolverhampton and Solihull, as well as express services from Birmingham to areas such as Cofton Hackett, Bromsgrove, and formerly to the city of Coventry (now operated by National Express Coventry).
History
Deregulation
In August 1986, prior to the deregulation of bus services, West Midlands Travel (WMT) was formed out the bus operations of the West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive. The PTE ceased to be a bus operator as a result of the Transport Act 1985, but both the West Midlands Passenger Transport Authority and successor organisation Transport for West Midlands retain a co-ordinating role, tendering bus services and funding concessionary fares and infrastructure such as bus stations.
West Midlands Travel faced its first major deregulation challenge in March 1987 when London Regional Transport (LRT) pulled out of its 'London Liner' London to Birmingham express coach service. Operated jointly by both LRT's London Coaches subsidiary and WMT's Central Coachways subsidiary using a fleet of MCW Metroliner coaches, following London Coaches' withdrawal, Central Coachways continued to run the service as its sole operator from the end of March.
The company invested in a heavy rebranding campaign in 1988 that saw the introduction of a new silver, blue and red livery to the bus fleet, new uniforms, and the purchase of 150 new MCW Metrobus double-decker buses. After 18 months of deregulation, WMT announced in October 1988 that it had made a profit of over £17.6 million (equivalent to £48,998,000 in 2025), retained 97% of its pre-deregulation bus network and had recorded a 5% drop in passengers compared to before deregulation; the latter, however, increased to a drop of 10% by 1989, resulting in fare rises and cutbacks in its bus network.
Employee ownership
Despite pressure from the central government, including both a threat to be split under Section 61 of the Transport Act 1985 to force its sale and government funding for the Midland Metro tram project being lost if the company was not sold, West Midlands Travel remained in public ownership under the West Midlands Passenger Transport Authority.
The public source identifies “National Express West Midlands” as bus operator in the West Midlands of England. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around National, Express and West.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6972538. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1986, 1985, 1987 and 1988.
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This entry incorporates text from “National Express West Midlands” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.