Spain and Portugal for Visitors

Posted by : John Ross on Oct 07, 2005 - 11:00 PM roadtravel

British passenger transport giant National Express and the family-owned Spanish bus company ALSA (Automóviles de Luarca, S.A.) are holding talks with a view to a possible merger. Such a merger would produce the largest passenger transport company in Europe, just in time for the EU liberalization of the sector scheduled for 2006. Find out more about Spanish and Portuguese bus companies, or read on.

Most Brits, especially, will not need to be reminded of the importance of National Express in the transport sector. Its 45,000 workers, over 1,000 destinations in Britain, its urban buses and its highly profitable train routes are the signs of a transport goliath, and NE also has a significant presence in the US, Canada and Australia. ALSA is less well known but also highly successful, having expanded from its provincial origins in the nineteen-twenties to take half of the market share in the Spanish road passenger transport sector today. And ALSA has a significant foreign presence as well, with activity in Portugal, Switzerland, Morocco, Chile, and China. The company formed by the merger would thus be in a good strategic position to tender for transport services which should be contracted out from next year onwards according to the EU timetable: as well as bus routes, railway services and airport management are going to be up for grabs.