# Greyhound in Big Trouble, Divests 213 Units, Employees Point Fingers



## Swadian Hardcore (Oct 9, 2015)

Oh great, Greyhound Lines Inc. is in big trouble. They have abruptly reduced their fleet by 213 units (from 1,483 to 1,270), and have reported a drop in revenue of 6.2% in the past six months. This comes in addition to the route cuts.

A rumor has said that one of Greyhound's G4500s failed a CA Emissions Test and was booted out of the state. The CARB requires that those buses have DPFs. It is possible that Greyhound never installed DPFs in their G4500s. The rumor says that, fearing failing more inspections, Greyhound will remove all G4500s from the West by January 1st, 2016, to prevent any of them from entering California.

This may also include the 102DL3, which is Greyhound's oldest bus (theirs built 1998-2001). Their G4500s were built 2001-2003.

Meanwhile, Greyhound employees are pointing fingers. One blames GLI dispatchers and schedulers, saying they are mentally challenged. Another accuses First Group of mismanagement. Yet another is angry at Greyhound's executives. Another blames managers for stupid decisions and the union for being equally stupid. Another blames the EPA and CARB. Some say Greyhound has too many rebuilt old buses, while others argue the new buses have been disappointments. Some say Greyhound makes too many stops. Some blame MCI and NJT. Some blame the horribly painful new seats, made by American Seating. Others say they should try to get local traffic and Package Express back. Everybody is blaming someone else, but nobody wishes to take responsibility.

The huge mess at GLI is prompting many drivers to resign. Arrogant drivers say they are looking for other jobs and are only waiting for the phone call; those guys also say that too many other employees are feeble-minded. Drivers are intentionally delaying their buses and managers are deferring maintenance.


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## jebr (Oct 9, 2015)

Swadian Hardcore said:


> Drivers are intentionally delaying their buses and managers are deferring maintenance.


If a driver is intentionally delaying a bus, they should be fired. Part of their job is to drive the bus as close to on-time as safely possible.


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## Swadian Hardcore (Oct 9, 2015)

Yes, they should be fired, but Greyhound isn't firing them. I'm very angry that Greyhound has refused to fire drivers who intentionally delay the bus. Whenever I see a driver in the station when he's supposed to have departed already, I feel like running in there to confront him, but that would get me kicked off the bus. And it's not a rare occurrence; if it was, I'd assume the driver had an emergency.


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## railiner (Oct 10, 2015)

I would love to know what the FirstGroup board thinks about their investment in Greyhound....remember, they only inherited GLI, as a result of their purchase of Laidlaw....they were thinking of divesting GLI at the time of the Laidlaw purchase, but decided to give it a go.

I wonder what they are thinking now?.........

Wouldn't be surprised if they try to divest it, but then, who would buy it?


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## Swadian Hardcore (Oct 10, 2015)

Didn't they also get GLC and a bunch of subsidiaries?

I did find out that part of the fleet reduction was GLI giving all its remaining 2008 X3-45s (the ones with cloth velour seats that originally ran Lucky Streak NYD-ACY) to GLC. But that's only a small number of units. Though, I feel like this is an effect of GLI's big downturn, rather than a cause.


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## railiner (Oct 10, 2015)

Swadian Hardcore said:


> Didn't they also get GLC and a bunch of subsidiaries?


Yes....but IIRC, they bought Laidlaw mainly for the extensive school bus operation's....what became 'FirstStudent'....Greyhound was just "excess baggage" in the deal, that they really were not interested in, but decided to try their hand at running it....


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## Swadian Hardcore (Oct 10, 2015)

Apparently, they were doing a good job up until last year. Then something went wrong, fast.


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## rickycourtney (Oct 10, 2015)

Swadian Hardcore said:


> Apparently, they were doing a good job up until last year. Then something went wrong, fast.


I got the impression that FirstGroup was injecting money into Greyhound, hoping that it would make the company more profitable in the long run. You probably know the old saying... "you need to spend money to make money." 
FirstGroup spent millions over the last few years buying over 500 new coaches, refurbishing over 600 older coaches, setting up a bus tracker and setting up a new electronic ticketing system.

Ticketing is a good example of the problem FirstGroup faces. They've invested money and time in setting it up... but it still hasn't launched (I imagine because it's a much larger challenge than anyone can imagine).

But for all this investment, I don't think it's made a big impact on ridership.

Sure some bad decisions have been made (Swad would point to the seat choice and the decision to buy the D4505) but I think that even if those choices weren't made, Greyhound would still be in a similar situation.

I just don't know how large a market there is anymore for long-distance motorcoaches... especially considering many Americans have access to an automobile or inexpensive domestic flights.

The future for motorcoaches is in short routes connecting major cities. It's an arena where Greyhound has found some success (especially through it's BoltBus subsidiary), but so have it's competitors.

I really don't know what the future holds for Greyhound, but I don't see much profit in operating long-distance routes.


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## Swadian Hardcore (Oct 10, 2015)

Either way, it appears that First Group's plan has failed. The new buses aren't more profitable than the old buses, yet they cost lots of money, either in cash or in heavy debt.

Greyhound cannibalized their own LD routes with a long series of mistakes and mismanagement. I believe LD ridership had stabilized after 9/11, but Greyhound kept making mistakes. LD ridership continues to drop, even on routes where airline traffic isn't growing. Greyhound could have been an alternative to driving ("Leave the Driving to Us") but not when their Superfans aren't even willing to ride anymore.


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## NW cannonball (Oct 13, 2015)

rickycourtney said:


> Swadian Hardcore said:
> 
> 
> > Apparently, they were doing a good job up until last year. Then something went wrong, fast.
> ...


"Ticketing is a good example of the problem FirstGroup faces. They've invested money and time in setting it up... but it still hasn't launched (I imagine because it's a much larger challenge than anyone can imagine)."

Blast from the past -- 1994 -- different ownership, different management (presumably) - Greyhound's difficulty in building an airline-grade ticketing system --

Failed then, maybe failing now. Story made the "risks list" 



> The main problem is that buses make many more stops than airplanes, meaning that a bus scheduling system is an order of magnitude harder to build than an airline scheduling system, which is already one of the most complex things anybody ever built.


And -- buses make lots less revenue per stop than airplanes. I don't pretend to understand the exponential complexity of the computation.


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