Coach hire quote: the items not to forget

A coach service quote is prepared by adding up what that service really costs: the total kilometres, including those the coach covers empty; the driver's hours, waiting included; tolls and parking; overnight stays and allowances if the trip lasts more than a day, and the share of the coach's fixed costs that falls to it. The parties set the price freely, so the key is not to leave any item out.

Here are the items worth checking, how to follow each quote until it is confirmed or lost, and why quoting three weddings for the same Saturday should not block your coach. There are no prices: each company has its own costs.

A freely set price, for the whole coach

In discretionary passenger transport the price is not set by tariff: Spain's transport law says it will be freely set by the contracting parties (our translation). That leaves the margin in your hands, and also the risk of quoting below cost.

As a general rule, discretionary transport is contracted for the whole capacity of the vehicle used. That is why the quote is made for the service and the coach, not per seat.

If you want to review exactly what a discretionary service is and which papers it carries, we explain it in discretionary passenger transport.

The items not to forget

A quote falls short when an item is missing. These are the ones worth checking on every service:

Item	What to look at
Kilometres	Those of the trip and those the coach covers empty from the depot to the pick-up and back.
Driver's hours	Driving hours and waiting hours: at a wedding or an excursion, the driver can wait for hours.
Tolls and parking	Those on the route and at the stops.
Overnight stay and allowances	If the service lasts more than a day or ends far away and late.
Second driver	If the length of the trip requires it because of driving and rest times.
Coach costs	Fuel, maintenance, insurance and the share of fixed costs that falls to that day.
Taxes	The VAT that applies to the service.

Two of those items have their own article: the driver's driving and rest limits, in driving and rest times, and the tax, in VAT on passenger transport.

Where to get your costs

A quote is only as good as the costs it uses. If you work out fuel from each coach's real consumption, and not from a figure from memory, the quote comes close to what later happens on the road.

In Bus Center, each coach's consumption and fuel cost per kilometre come from the refuels you record, by period and by vehicle. And profitability per coach shows, by period, what each coach earned minus what it cost. It does not calculate the price of a quote, but it gives you the data to calculate it properly.

An honest note: Bus Center does not give the profitability of each individual service, because fleet expenses are recorded per coach and not per service. It gives it per coach and per period. To review your quotes, the useful thing is to compare what each coach earns with what it costs in the same period, and adjust the items that fall short.

Quote, sent, confirmed

A quote that is sent and not followed up gets lost. You need to know at all times which ones are prepared, which have been sent to the customer and await a reply, and which have been confirmed or rejected.

In Bus Center each service is a file that runs from start to finish: quote, sent, confirmed, carried out and invoiced, with customer, route, schedule, passengers, coach and driver. The program validates every change of status: it rejects a jump that is not due and says what is missing. For example, a quote cannot be marked as sent without a price, and if the customer says no, it is rejected with its reason.

When the customer confirms, the same file moves forward: it is planned, the route sheet is issued and, at the end, it is invoiced without retyping anything. The record of each school, company or private customer keeps its history, which is what you look at before quoting a repeat customer.

Quote conversion is measured with the quotes that have become a service in the program, not with an estimate. That way you know what share of what you quote ends up as a trip.

Three weddings on the same Saturday

In season, several requests can arrive for the same day and the same coach. If each quote blocked the coach, you would have to choose before knowing who confirms.

In Bus Center, you can quote three weddings for the same Saturday: only the confirmed one blocks the coach. A coach or a driver cannot be on two services at once, but a quote reserves nothing. When one wedding is confirmed with that coach and its schedule, the others can no longer be confirmed with the same coach at the same time. How planning without overlaps works is covered in planning coaches and drivers.

What Bus Center does, and what it does not

Bus Center does not calculate the price of a quote: the office enters the amount. Nor does it optimise routes. What it does is keep each quote in its file, prevent status jumps that are not due, not block the coach until the service is confirmed and measure how many quotes end up as a service.

Sources consulted

Checked on 11 October 2026. We link to the original source so that you can consult the current text.

• Ley 16/1987, de 30 de julio, de Ordenación de los Transportes Terrestres (texto consolidado). BOE.