Last verified: September 17, 2026. I read both operators’ booking systems myself on the date above, along with CTM’s and Supratours’ own conditions of sale and CTM’s audited annual report. The departure counts and journey times come from my own earlier round on 30 August 2026 and carry that date wherever they appear. Coach networks and ticket rules both change without announcement, so I re-read all of it every 60 days and move the date above each time.
Morocco has two national coach companies, and on the afternoon I counted them, CTM’s booking system listed 119 cities while Supratours reached 67 places. Only 48 of those appear on both lists. One of the two will take you to Merzouga. The other stops short of it.
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Every CTM vs Supratours comparison I can find ranks the two on seat comfort and legroom. That is the wrong question, and it produces the wrong answer roughly half the time. CTM and Supratours are not two brands of the same product. CTM is an independent company that sells a network of its own. Supratours belongs to the railway, and it exists to carry train passengers past the end of the track.
Once you know that, you do not need an opinion about the seats. You need to know where each one goes, whether your journey starts on a train, and what happens to your money if your plans move. So I read both booking systems on 17 September 2026, matched the two networks stop by stop, and read both companies’ conditions of sale.
Key Takeaways
- They are not the same kind of company. CTM is independent and sells its own network. Supratours is ONCF’s road arm, and describes itself on its own site as providing “coach continuations to the cities not served by the train”
- The networks barely overlap. On 17 September 2026 CTM’s system listed 119 cities and Supratours reached 67 places between its stops and its agencies. Only 48 are served by both
- Supratours goes to Merzouga and CTM does not. CTM’s nearest stops are Rissani and Erfoud
- A standard CTM ticket cannot be refunded at all. Refunds need the CTM Flex option, priced at 5% of the fare with a 10 dirham minimum. Supratours publishes a refund table for its own fares instead
- Each company’s website hides the other’s shortcut. Ask ONCF for Fes to Chefchaouen and it answers 6h32 with two changes, because the direct road link belongs to CTM
Table of Contents
CTM vs Supratours: which should you book?
Book Supratours when your journey starts on a train or ends where the railway feeds, and CTM for everywhere else. On 17 September 2026 I counted 119 cities in CTM’s booking system against 67 places for Supratours, with only 48 served by both. That overlap is the whole answer: most of the time only one of them actually goes where you are going.
| Your journey | Book | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Starts or ends on a train | Supratours | One ticket, one booking, the coach timed against the train |
| Goes to Merzouga | Supratours | CTM does not list Merzouga at all |
| Between two towns off the rail spine | CTM | 119 cities, and often the only direct road link |
| To a big railway city | Either, or take the train | Supratours keeps an agency there rather than a coach network |
| Might have to move | Check the rules first | A standard CTM ticket is not refundable |
| Neither company lists it | A grand taxi | How the shared taxis work |
Two things this post does not do. It quotes no ticket prices, because what a Moroccan ticket costs is measured in its own post, on its own dates, and I would rather link it than print a number here that ages badly. Published fees and refund rules are a different thing, and you will find both below. And it does not choose your mode for you: the guide to getting around Morocco covers train against coach against car against taxi, and this post starts after you have chosen the coach.
What is the actual difference between CTM and Supratours?
CTM, the Compagnie de Transports au Maroc, was founded in 1919, has been listed on the Casablanca Stock Exchange since 1993, and runs 220 coaches on 178 return departures a day. Supratours is a subsidiary of ONCF, the national railway, and publishes no fleet size, no passenger count and no revenue at all. One of them is a transport company that sells coach travel. The other is a railway’s road department.
Supratours says so itself. The footer of its own site reads: “Filiale ONCF, Supratours assure des continuations par autocars pour les villes non desservies par le train,” which translates as coach continuations to the cities the train does not serve (Supratours, read 17 September 2026). That is not marketing. It is a description of the network’s shape, and it predicts almost everything else in this comparison.
CTM’s side of the ledger is unusually well documented for this industry, because a listed company has to publish. Its 2025 annual report records 3 million passengers, 41 million kilometres run, an average coach age of 3.6 years, 54 seats on average, a fleet entirely on Euro 5 engines and a punctuality rate of 99.6% (CTM, Rapport Financier Annuel 2025, published April 2026). It is 79.82% owned by O Capital Group.
CTM Premium, the operator’s top range. Seventeen of its 220 coaches are Premium, which is why traveller reports of the on-board experience disagree so much. Photo: Hamza Izourane, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
For Supratours there is no equivalent document. ONCF’s own subsidiary page carries no operating figures (ONCF, read 17 September 2026), and the fleet numbers that circulate online trace back to an encyclopedia entry rather than the company, so I am not going to repeat them. The absence is worth knowing in itself: you can check CTM’s claims and you cannot check Supratours’.
One structural note that explains the rest of this page. Intercity coach operation in Morocco still runs on a licensing regime of agréments, and CTM’s own report describes its network as governed by them. Routes are not a free market, which is why two operators can serve almost entirely different maps.
Where each network actually goes
Of the places these two companies serve, 48 appear on both lists, 19 are Supratours only, and 71 are CTM only. I read CTM’s booking system, ONCF’s station list and Supratours’ own station and agency data on the same afternoon, then matched the names by hand.
That 71 needs deflating before you do anything with it, and the honest version is less flattering to CTM. A good part of the CTM-only list is railway cities: Oujda, Taza, El Jadida, Nador, Casablanca, Rabat. Supratours does not run coaches between them because the trains already do, and in several of those cities it keeps an agency inside the railway station instead.
Compare the two off the rail spine, which is where a coach is the only option, and CTM still lists substantially more places. I am not going to put a ratio on it: ONCF’s published timetables are engineering-works sheets that do not list every station, so the clean rail-versus-coach split that a ratio would need cannot be computed from them.
For scale against the railway: scheduled coaches reach 20 of the 25 destinations I checked on 30 August 2026, against the train’s 8.
A caveat I would rather print than bury. ONCF’s French station names tag only 30 stops as Supratours, while its Arabic names, which write the operator out as سوبراتور, or Supratour, tag 61. That is the count Supratours’ own system agrees with. Even 61 is a floor: the stops along the Taroudant, Tata, Ighrem and Tissint corridor carry no tag in either language and no railway reaches any of them. The operator’s own labelling is not complete, so nobody can count this network exactly from published data, myself included.
Does CTM go to Merzouga?
No. Supratours sells two stops at Merzouga, one in the village and one at Hassi Labiad, and CTM lists neither. CTM’s nearest stops are Rissani and Erfoud, and you would need onward road transport from either. For the most-travelled overland journey in Morocco outside the rail spine, the choice of operator is made for you.
Merzouga. Supratours sells a stop here and CTM does not, which settles the operator question for anyone heading to Erg Chebbi. Photo: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
When I read ONCF’s journey planner on 30 August 2026, one direct Supratours coach a day ran Marrakech to Merzouga, leaving at 08:00 and arriving at 20:30. Twelve and a half hours in a seat is a long day, and it is the reason most people reach the dunes on a multi-day tour that includes the transport instead. What a desert tour actually costs has the medians, and the desert guide covers how the 2, 3 and 4-day shapes differ. Neither is this post’s job.
Worth knowing if you are choosing a dune field rather than an operator: CTM does serve Zagora, and Supratours serves both. Merzouga against Zagora is the comparison that decides which one you want, and the coach question follows from it rather than the other way round.
Why book Supratours when your journey starts on a train?
Because it is one ticket. Supratours coaches sell inside ONCF’s booking system and run to meet the trains, so when I searched Casablanca to Agadir on 30 August 2026 it came back as eight departures a day, between 6h45 and 7h46, as a train to Marrakech and a coach onward. No separate booking, no guessing at the connection, and the operator owns both halves of the journey.
The towns this covers are the ones most visitors actually want. On 30 August 2026 Marrakech to Essaouira had nine coach departures a day, Marrakech to Ouarzazate five, and Tangier to Chefchaouen two. None of those three has a railway station, so the coach there is the scheduled option on the ground rather than the cheap alternative to a train. Both operators serve all three.
There is also a part of the network that barely gets written about. Supratours’ own station list carries 23 points that ONCF’s does not, including shuttle stops at ten airports, among them Marrakech, Casablanca, Agadir, Fes and Tangier. If you are landing and heading straight out of the city, it is worth a look before you book a private transfer.
The advantage has a hard edge, though. If no part of your journey touches a train, through-ticketing is worth precisely nothing to you, and you are choosing on coverage alone. That is the next section.
A Supratours coach at Agadir. Photo: Hamza Izourane, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
CTM is the operator for everywhere else
CTM lists 119 cities and reaches whole regions the railway’s road arm never touches, including Ifrane, Sidi Ifni, Oualidia, Saidia, Tafraout and Taounate. If your journey is between two towns that have no railway between them, CTM is usually the operator with a direct coach, and sometimes the only one.
Here is the trap that costs people a day. When I asked ONCF’s planner for Fes to Chefchaouen on 30 August 2026, it answered 6h32 with two changes, routing you north to Kenitra, onto the high-speed line to Tangier, then south again by coach. It is not wrong. It is just the only answer ONCF can give, because it only sells journeys on its own network, and the direct road link between those two cities belongs to CTM. Each company’s website quietly pretends the other does not exist, so the tool you reach for first shapes the answer you get. Check both before you book anything off the rail spine.
A municipal gare routière. Twenty-five of CTM’s 130 stops are at one of these; most of the rest are the company’s own agencies. Photo: Abdemoullay, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Where you actually board differs between them, and it matters more at 6am than it sounds on a screen. CTM’s report calls it the only operator in the sector with bus stations of its own, and its stop list bears that out: of 130 stops, 25 sit at a municipal gare routière, 3 sit at a Supratours terminal, and the rest are CTM’s own agencies with street addresses. Supratours, true to its parent, is often at the railway station. Its Marrakech, Safi and Tangier agencies are listed at the ONCF station itself.
Which ticket can you actually change or refund?
A standard CTM ticket cannot be refunded at all. Refunds require the CTM Flex option, which costs 5% of the fare with a 10 dirham minimum. Even then you are refunded as a voucher rather than to your card. No page comparing these two operators mentions it. For anyone whose plans might move, it matters more than seat width.
CTM’s own conditions are precise about it. Without Flex you get two changes, each at least 12 hours before departure, at 10 dirhams a change, and no refund at any point. With Flex the changes are free, and the refund runs 100% more than 24 hours out, 85% between 12 and 24 hours, and nothing inside 12 hours. It arrives as a CTM voucher, valid 6 months and usable once, with any unspent balance lost. A Flex ticket changed twice stops being refundable (CTM, conditions générales de vente, read 17 September 2026).
Supratours publishes a refund table instead of an option. On its Flex fares the ticket is refunded in full up to 24 hours before departure, and at 80% inside that window. Exchanges before departure are free and unlimited. Its semi-flex fares refund 50% (Supratours, read 17 September 2026). The flexibility is built into the fare you pick rather than sold as an add-on.
A CTM ticket. Whether this one can be refunded depends on a 5% option bought at the same time as the ticket. Photo: Abdeaitali, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Luggage works differently too, and neither of them publishes online what it actually costs. CTM charges for hold luggage and sends you to its site or an agency for the amount. The allowance is two bags, each under 20 kg and under 170 cm for the three dimensions added together, plus a cabin bag of 40 by 50 by 16 cm. Buy the bag with the ticket, or at least 30 minutes before departure.
If a bag goes missing and you have not declared a value, compensation is capped at 100 dirhams, which is a payout rather than a price. Supratours requires every hold bag to be registered and tagged, and carried “moyennant le paiement d’un supplément par bagage”. To find out what that supplement is, it sends you to a point of sale. I could not find that figure published anywhere.
The ride is a product tier, not a company
The comfort difference is a product tier, not a company. Only 17 of CTM’s 220 coaches are Premium, so whether you get leather seats and wifi depends on the service you booked rather than the logo on the side. That is why traveller reports of both operators contradict each other so cheerfully.
Both companies advertise air conditioning, on-board wifi and USB charging on their better ranges, and Supratours lists toilets on board. My own experience of both is that the wifi is a lottery, the air conditioning is not, and the thing that actually decides your morning is where the coach leaves from and how early you have to be there. CTM wants you at the agency 15 minutes before departure, or 30 minutes if you are putting a bag in the hold.
On safety, the numbers are better than most first-time visitors expect. Morocco recorded 4,577 road deaths in 2025, up 25.5% on the year, but coach occupants accounted for 0.4% of them and bus occupants 0.1%, against 45% for motorcycles and 25.9% for pedestrians (NARSA, provisional 2025 statistics, published February 2026). In a country with genuinely dangerous roads, the intercity coach is the safe end of them, on either operator.
Book ahead in high season regardless of which you choose. On the routes with two departures a day, and that includes Chefchaouen, a full coach means tomorrow rather than this afternoon. When Morocco is actually full has the months that matter.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is better, CTM or Supratours?
Neither, and the question hides the real one. On 17 September 2026 CTM’s system listed 119 cities and Supratours reached 67 places, with only 48 on both lists. For most journeys only one of them goes where you are going, so check coverage first and comfort second.
Does CTM go to Merzouga?
No. Supratours sells two stops at Merzouga, in the village and at Hassi Labiad. CTM’s nearest stops are Rissani and Erfoud, and you would need onward road transport from either. If you are travelling independently to Erg Chebbi, that single fact decides your operator before anything else does.
Can I buy a Supratours coach ticket with my train ticket?
Yes. Supratours is ONCF’s road arm and its coaches sit in the same booking system as the trains, timed to meet them. On 30 August 2026 Casablanca to Agadir came back as eight departures a day at 6h45 to 7h46, sold as one journey of train and coach. Essaouira, Ouarzazate and Chefchaouen work the same way.
Can I get a refund if my plans change?
Not on a standard CTM ticket, which its conditions of sale state plainly is non-refundable. Refunds need the CTM Flex option at 5% of the fare, minimum 10 dirhams, and arrive as a 6-month voucher. Supratours refunds its Flex fares in full up to 24 hours before departure and 80% inside that window, and its semi-flex fares at 50%.
Do I need to book a Moroccan coach in advance?
Book ahead for the seat, not the price. On the four Supratours routes I priced on 28 August 2026, the fare was identical two days out and three weeks out, while train fares fell sharply. I have never got a fare out of CTM’s system, so I cannot say whether that holds there. The measurement is here.
The rule, in one line
CTM vs Supratours comes down to this: let the destination pick the operator. If your journey starts on a train or ends where the railway feeds, Supratours sells it as one ticket and times the connection for you. If it runs between two towns off the rail spine, CTM probably has the only direct coach. Search both before you decide, because neither website will tell you about the other. And if your plans might move, read the ticket rules before you compare the seats: one of these companies sells you a ticket that cannot be refunded unless you pay extra at the moment you buy it.
The networks and the ticket rules above were read from the operators’ own systems on 17 September 2026, and the departure counts come from my 30 August round. All of it changes without notice, so I re-check it every 60 days.
