National Express controls costs

The bus, coach and rail firm – now under the leadership of former Tube Lines boss Dean Finch – said cost savings were helping shore up results, while revenue trends have also been "resilient".

Mr Finch said the tough actions taken so far would "progressively improve our performance from the second half year onwards" as part of a turnaround following a disastrous year for its rail business.

The group returned its loss-making East Coast franchise to the Government in November after overbidding for the deal before recession struck.

The company will also end its East Anglian and c2c commuter deals in 2011.

Mr Finch pledged to take "hands on control" of all the group's businesses to get them back on track.

As well as raising fares, he is slashing costs in the bus business – which operates in the West Midlands and Dundee – by reducing driver wage costs and running routes more efficiently to save fuel costs. Drivers are understood to be being offered a lump sum in return for taking a pay cut.

The group's UK coach arm is benefiting from strong demand for coach travel from domestic holidaymakers, which has boosted revenues by three per cent year-on-year so far in 2010.

An overhaul of the business in the United States, which runs school buses, earmarked more than $20m (13.3m) of annual savings as part of a plan to slash $40m (16.6m) in total.