National Express reduces its timetables and warns Milton Keynes passengers to only travel if essential

And they are also ensuring travellers can keep their social distance by reducing capacity on all coaches by 50 per cent.

Chris Hardy, managing director of National Express UK Coach, said: "Latest Government advice is that people should avoid travelling unless it is essential. We are still operating to be able to help those individuals with essential travel needs and ask all others to follow guidance and not travel unnecessarily.

The company has increased the cleaning of coaches, ticket vending machines and other customer touch points in a bid to keep customers safe.

Mr Hardy said: "Our drivers, customer service teams, customer contact centre and the wider National Express team are working incredibly hard to keep these services running safely. We are doing all we can to support everyone who works in our business at this challenging time , especially our front-line staff who can't work from home; including paying company sick pay from day one.

"And we're trying to help our customers as best we can in this uncertain time by offering a free amend to re-book their travel with us again in the next 12 months or a full refund for anyone whose travel has been cancelled."

National Express bosses are already speaking to organisations to find out how its coaches and driver might be able to support the country during these testing times.

Customers should check www.nationalexpress.com for full details of changes.

"We will continue to update customers through our website, social media channels and email alerts," promised Mr Hardy.