# Greyhound Publishes New (Inaccurate) Route Map



## Swadian Hardcore

A few months ago I had e-mailed Greyhound, asking them to make an accurate route map of their own routes. They just updated their website, lo and behold, including a new PDF route map.

But they messed up again.

It's INACCURATE!

See this: http://www.greyhound.com/App_Themes/Marketing/Images/FareFinder_Express1_20140911_174524_RouteMapPDF.pdf.

Now what's inaccurate?

Well, five things I've spotted so far:

The Chicago-Omaha was cancelled back in December 2012

The Denver-Salt Lake City via Grand Junction was cancelled and moved to go through Craig along US 40.

They left out the Chattanooga-Birmingham connector, which uses a cutaway.

They left out the Lubbock-Abilene segment.

They put Denver-Cheyenne as an independent "branch" route but it actually is part of Denver-Portland.

The two biggest errors so far are obviously the Grand Junction-Salt Lake City and the Chicago-Omaha.

See any more errors? Please tell me, because I'm going to e-mail Greyhound again to tell them about this. At least Greyhound responds to my e-mails.


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## Eric S

One error that I noticed is that Ottumwa should be in Iowa, not Missouri.

EDIT: Not to mention, it's misspelled on the map.


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## Swadian Hardcore

Jeez, that's right!

Four more errors I found:

Shows Alamogordo-El Paso, but that route doesn't exist.

Shows Los Angeles-Mojave-Las Vegas, cut back to Palmdale already.

Fails to show Little rock-Jonesboro-West Memphis Connector.

Fails to show Abilene-Lubbock.


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## saxman

Doesn't the line that covers Lubbock to Abilene go through Big Spring? Or does it take the shorter route?


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## Swadian Hardcore

saxman said:


> Doesn't the line that covers Lubbock to Abilene go through Big Spring? Or does it take the shorter route?


It takes the faster route through Snyder and Sweetwater, according to the timetable. It is a through Denver-Dallas run, the local via Lamar and Rocky Ford.


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## rickycourtney

It's a start... but I agree it needs work.

My biggest complaint? It needs timetable numbers. I don't have them all memorized, so it helps to reference this map first.


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## Swadian Hardcore

They need an accurate map, and then add timetable numbers. Useless to add timetable numbers when the map is messed up.


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## railiner

rickycourtney said:


> It's a start... but I agree it needs work.
> 
> My biggest complaint? It needs timetable numbers. I don't have them all memorized, so it helps to reference this map first.


Agreed!

In the old Russell's Guide's, they used to have a more or less geographically correct system map, along with a separate set of schematic timetable index maps.

I am also curious about the red dots indicating state capital's....why Minneapolis instead of St. Paul? Or Philadelphia instead of Harrisburg? Or leaving out Santa Fe?

Maybe some more....I wonder who they picked to produce this map? Seems very amateurish......


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## chakk

Capital of Maryland is Annapolis, not Baltimore as shown on their map.


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## Swadian Hardcore

chakk said:


> Capital of Maryland is Annapolis, not Baltimore as shown on their map.


Wow, and Annapolis is spelled wrong, and they should have gotten it right since Greyhound goes to Annapolis.

All right, ten things on the list to fix.

First of all, they better stop tricking passengers with that faux Chicago-Omaha route.


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## railiner

Interesting on the service into Cheyenne....when they first dropped the service on I-80 across Nebraska a few years ago, there was no East-West service thru there...only North-South by TNM&O and Powder River...

The Denver to Salt Lake City trips ran I-25 up to Fort Collins, and then took the 'cut-off' via US 287 direct to Laramie, and then I-80 on west. Interesting that they are now running from Fort Collins up to Cheyenne on I-25, and then going west on I-80. A better, albeit slightly longer route, that serves the state capital.

One thing that I wonder about is if they are running that with no driver change.....awfully close on the driving hour limit, that way.......


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## Swadian Hardcore

Agreed, the other Denver-SLC runs via Steamboat Springs and gets a driver change there.


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## railiner

Swadian Hardcore said:


> Agreed, the other Denver-SLC runs via Steamboat Springs and gets a driver change there.


That route is slower than going via Wyoming, and cannot be driven in ten hours, so it must have a driver change.


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## Swadian Hardcore

I know 10 hours is the limit, but that Wyoming route is now 10.5 hours, so they might want to start using the cutoff again or restart the Grand Junction-SLC route.


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## MattW

They don't include the Southeastern stages network which is bookable through Greyhound and runs principally east of Atlanta along the I-20 corridor into South and North Carolina.


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## railiner

Swadian Hardcore said:


> I know 10 hours is the limit, but that Wyoming route is now 10.5 hours, so they might want to start using the cutoff again or restart the Grand Junction-SLC route.


If you deduct the time spent at the rest stops, together they would add up to sixty minutes....so it is within the 10 hour driving limit, but just barely....


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## Swadian Hardcore

MattW said:


> They don't include the Southeastern stages network which is bookable through Greyhound and runs principally east of Atlanta along the I-20 corridor into South and North Carolina.


They shouldn't do that, Southeastern Stages is not Greyhound. They don't want people to think Southeastern Stages is Greyhound. Just like how Jefferson, Burlington, Black Hills, and Salt Lake Express cover massive Greyhound gaps in the West but aren't shown on the map.

If Greyhound was to do that, they might as well include BoltBus which is at least registered under Greyhound's name.


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## oiky

I've been looking around the internet for ages for a decent map that shows the whole network. I have previously encountered their map on the extranet which is a start but quite out of date. I guess in a weird way if you combine that with this map you almost get something which is useable. at least as a company it appears they are doing something to improve in this aspect. how long until we have live bus tracking and live station departure boards?


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## nightrider

November 31st.


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## rickycourtney

nightrider said:


> November 31st.


That would be great if it's true but [citation needed].


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## Swadian Hardcore

Really? November 31st? Well, that's good if it's true. Greyhound already has live GPS bus tracking through a system called CADEC, it's just not available to the public. Only Greyhound dispatchers can see it. CADEC is on every Greyhound motorcoach and it tracks location, speed, heading, and engine RPM.

Here's more info on that system: http://www.cadec.com/. 

Greyhound also has something called DriveCam which is installed on the right front windshield of every unit. DriveCam videotapes both in front (like a dashcam) and inside down the aisle of the motorcoach. It also tracks speed. More info here: http://www.lytx.com/. 

And lastly, there's always the DOT-mandated "black boxes" that track speeding. Drivers are wary of not getting disciplined once they get to their destination after being caught speeding by that, which sends messages to the DOT.

Yeah, the maps really suck. I sent an e-mail to Greyhound two days ago and they quickly replied saying they would fix it. So at least I was heard.

If you need anything, don't hesitate to ask, I'll try to help if I can.


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## oiky

At least the map gives some sort of visual representation of the routes. If you are planning a trip across the states like I am it comes in very useful in comparison to my original tactic of typing in my 'from' destination and then dozens of random 'to' destinations in a hope that i can figure out where I can go from the original desination. Even megabus have a map view where you can see all possible destinations from your starting point.

On that note, I do really like the AIBRA map, even though I have read that it's not entirely accurate and the fact it is hurtful on the eyes. It's a shame that there are not more publicly available maps of countrywide public transport in the US. It would surely make the customers life a lot easier and promote the services


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## Swadian Hardcore

Well, I e-mailed Greyhound on the issue and they said they would fix it. That's all I can say on that issue.

If you want, you can tell me a city and I can list out all the routes from that city. There's really not that many routes from each city. Where do you want to go?


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## oiky

I've pretty much got it sorted now, i've been working on it a while, but thanks for the offer, there may well be help that I still need so i'll let you know if so


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## Swadian Hardcore

Yeah, but where are you going? I still want to know where you are going.


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## oiky

Everywhere 

Arriving in Miami, going across the south from east to west, going up the west coast and then heading west to east! I think there are a dozen train journeys planned and about 30 bus trips (greyhound, megabus, bolt, Salt Lake Express) as well as a couple of internal flights.

I drew a preliminary map a while ago, it's actually not very accurate anymore as the route has been changed but you get the jist from it

http://imgur.com/aJEzUd9


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## rickycourtney

Wow! What a trip that would be!


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## Swadian Hardcore

I feel like the different colors have a different meaning. What do they mean?


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## rickycourtney

I'm guessing that's why he put a legend explaining what the colors mean at the top of the map.


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## Swadian Hardcore

Oh, I see that now. Sorry!

"Tour" seems like the same color as "Flight" though. Can't understand what the grey lines are.

Please don't fly from Salt Lake City to Las Vegas, that's a good bus ride! You get to go through this: http://www.arizonaroads.com/pics/i15canyon1.jpg. 

Really wish you could have gone through more of the Northwest, lots of good scenery over there. Greyhound's Sacramento-Portland completely daytime ride (Sked 1446) is worth the day. Just got upgraded, too. I'm a big fan of whole-day rides when you get on the morning and get off in the evening. Good rides take time, daytime.

Can't ride a train from Montgomery to New Orleans, by the way.


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## oiky

Sorry, yeah the legend isn't very clear on that but you can ignore that anyway because i found a more up to date version!

http://i.imgur.com/HOoweuc.jpg (starting point is miami)

Red is bus (although i havent done anything to distinguish which carrier), blue is flight and green is train.

I actually have a spreadsheet with the complete schedule, including actual places to visit, carriers and costs that i have figured out by searching all of the relevant booking systems, i just need to make sure i have raised enough money by january and then i will start booking it all for next year.

The north east isnt filled in for any of these maps due to lack of space, i have all the options and route down in my spreadsheet though


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## Swadian Hardcore

I heard Atlanta-Savannah has some of the worst equipment. The equipment in that route is state-owned (D4505) and apparently stuck in the dreaded "turn-and-burn" cycle, which means they arrive one end and immediately turn around to go back without a thorough cleaning. They just dump the toilet tank, the trash, and the refuel the motorcoach.

Instead, I suggest you ride up the coast from Miami up to Wilmington by Greyhound and Southeastern, then go from Wilmington straight to Atlanta by Southeastern. Their website: http://www.southeasternstages.com/Home.html.

I don't see the point of going from New Orleans to Mobile and doubling back. Why not just go from Atlanta to Mobile to New Orleans?

From Oakland to Portland, I suggest using Greyhound because they run an all-daytime schedule from Sacramento. However, you will need to start from Sacramento. That way you can see the scenic segment between Redding and Weed (including Lake Shasta), and guarantee seeing Mount Shasta. I would rather not travel at night if I didn't have to.

You're also missing out on some of the most scenic routes by flying from Denver to Idaho Falls and from Salt Lake City to Las Vegas. I strongly suggest you switch to train or bus for those segments.

I suggest you reduce short-distance bus segments because many short-distance buses are stuck in turn-and-burn, this applies for many operators, not just Greyhound.


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## neroden

nightrider said:


> November 31st.


Guys who didn't get the joke: "30 days hath September, April, June, and November".


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## oiky

Swadian Hardcore said:


> I heard Atlanta-Savannah has some of the worst equipment. The equipment in that route is state-owned (D4505) and apparently stuck in the dreaded "turn-and-burn" cycle, which means they arrive one end and immediately turn around to go back without a thorough cleaning. They just dump the toilet tank, the trash, and the refuel the motorcoach.
> 
> Instead, I suggest you ride up the coast from Miami up to Wilmington by Greyhound and Southeastern, then go from Wilmington straight to Atlanta by Southeastern. Their website: http://www.southeasternstages.com/Home.html.
> 
> I don't see the point of going from New Orleans to Mobile and doubling back. Why not just go from Atlanta to Mobile to New Orleans?
> 
> From Oakland to Portland, I suggest using Greyhound because they run an all-daytime schedule from Sacramento. However, you will need to start from Sacramento. That way you can see the scenic segment between Redding and Weed (including Lake Shasta), and guarantee seeing Mount Shasta. I would rather not travel at night if I didn't have to.
> 
> You're also missing out on some of the most scenic routes by flying from Denver to Idaho Falls and from Salt Lake City to Las Vegas. I strongly suggest you switch to train or bus for those segments.
> 
> I suggest you reduce short-distance bus segments because many short-distance buses are stuck in turn-and-burn, this applies for many operators, not just Greyhound.


Thanks.

That south east section is definitely up for tweaking, we are trying to find the route that works best time wise. In fact the lastest plan we have includes what you said, working our way up to wilmington (i like how you can tell what my destinations are by some poorly placed X's on that map!) by train and bus to then fly to New Orleans from there. The flight saves a lot of time in the long run and it means we get to travel up that east coast. This also facilitates the idea of doing Mobile as a day trip from New Orleans where we will be for a few days.

I think our reasoning for the oakland - Portland section was that we really wanted to experience being in a cabin overnight on amtrak, we are also probably doing this between Austin and El Paso but the latter is still susceptible of being shelved in favour of yet another time saving flight so we nailed the former down so that we would definitely experience it at least once.

Denver to Idaho Falls is a shame i know, again the problem there is the time it takes to get between them both, there is also the fact that if we get the salt lake express from SLC to West Yellowstone the only real stop where i can say i've been to Idaho is a 2 hour stopover on the outskirts of Rexburg which isn't great. I am likely to change the SLC - Vegas flight to a bus though anyway.

And i completely understand what you are saying about the short distance buses, again the issue there is the price difference. I can get seats for a couple of dollars by booking 2 months in advance whereas the equivalent route on the train could be 10 or 20 times that much, it's just all about trade-offs at this point until i definitely know how much money I have to do this trip!

I keep mentioning time, but honestly it is really hard to try and cram in 50 states in 90 days. 90 days is all we get standard from the Visa Waiver Program, going into canada or mexico annoyingly won't reset that so the whole trip has to be carefully planned. Some places are going to get burned because of this, i think i'll only end up being in North Dakota for 90 minutes! We can always try and apply for a different visa but that costs money, and i don't fancy trying to convince border control that a couple that has given up their jobs and flat isn't trying to stay permanently in america (we're not) and jeopardise the whole thing!


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## Swadian Hardcore

My view of travel is that if you are in the state on ground transportation, then you're still there. So you'll probably end up being in North Dakota for a bit longer.

Fun fact: the big MCI buses are made in North Dakota and Manitoba. I guess that's why Jefferson uses lots of MCIs.

Why don't you reduce the trip a bit? You're really trying to doing everything all at once, but maybe save Alaska and Hawaii for some other time. How about even tackling North America in multiple smaller trips?

Mentioning MCI again, they once attempted to satisfy every bus operator by introducing a myriad of models but ended up satisfying no one. If time and money are issues for you, breaking it up into smaller pieces is definitely an option that I recommend.

Like for the Northeast, you could do New York City-Ashbury Park-Philadelphia-Baltimore-Washington-Pittsburgh-Cleveland-Buffalo-Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec City-Rimouski-Gaspe-Rimouski-Montreal-Boston-New York City.

All the Northeast except Maine.


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## neroden

Any news on Greyhound maps? I guess where I am what would be even more useful would be Trailways maps; they're just as bad or worse!


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## railiner

neroden said:


> Any news on Greyhound maps? I guess where I am what would be even more useful would be Trailways maps; they're just as bad or worse!


What improvement would you suggest? http://trailwaysny.com/index.php/route-map/


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## Swadian Hardcore

Greyhound has not updated their map since September 11th, 2014, the same map that I complained about earlier.


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## oiky

To refer to the mini discussion about live bus tracking as mentioned a few posts ago. I am sitting in Jackson MS greyhound station and they have a poster on the wall advertising a bus tracker at bustracker.greyhound.com now the link doesn't work for me. Is this something that's been known about for a while or do we think that they are advertising it too soon. Judging by the authentication request I'm guessing they haven't turned it on for the public yet!


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## Swadian Hardcore

It doesn't work. I say just forget about it. Anything electronic about Greyhound is just terrible, with the exception of CADEC. Even the DriveCam is often taped over. Whenever I ride Greyhound, I just completely "disconnect", then again, I don't have a smartphone anyway.


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## rickycourtney

If they're working on a bustracker system... that's incredibly good news. I'm hoping that the system is almost ready, but the poster was put up too soon. Was it a slick, well made poster or something made by the station workers?

The lack of tracking is honestly one of my biggest gripes with Greyhound/BoltBus and I know I'm not the only one. In this day and age you should be able to get real time arrival information for your bus. Period.


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## oiky

Even if you had a smartphone nearly every website on their on bus WiFi is blocked anyway. Even this forum!

And the poster was an official slick greyhound branded poster, should have got a picture!


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## Swadian Hardcore

I think you can get in to most websites with a laptop (I've tried), but it's very, very slow. And the Wi-Fi only works in populated areas. I must say that lack of tracking isn't really a gripe for me because I don't have a smartphone anyway, but I can see how lack of tracking can be a problem for some people. For a "disconnected" guy like me, my biggest concern is with those Painful Premiers.


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## rickycourtney

Swad... even if you don't have a smartphone and stay disconnected from technology while travelling... you'll benefit from real-time bus tracking.

With that data, station agents will be able to better keep passengers informed of en route delays and Greyhound will likely be able to deploy departures/arrivals boards at larger stations, similar to what you're used to seeing at the airport.

Overall it would be a fantastic change for every passenger.


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## Swadian Hardcore

Yes, it would be, but I believe the Painful Premiers are a bigger problem, though that one will take a long time to fix. The inaccurate route map needs to be fixed before real-time bus tracking can be implemented. All Greyhound buses already have CADEC, which tracks their location by GPS. But Greyhound fails to communicate that information to passengers. They need an accurate map of their own routes first, which is nowhere to be found. Even their financial report has a grossly inaccurate map.

And the inaccurate route map on Greyhound's official website still hasn't been fixed. The map on the System Timetable is also inaccurate. How do you track buses without route maps?


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## rickycourtney

Swadian Hardcore said:


> Yes, it would be, but I believe the Painful Premiers are a bigger problem, though that one will take a long time to fix. The inaccurate route map needs to be fixed before real-time bus tracking can be implemented. All Greyhound buses already have CADEC, which tracks their location by GPS. But Greyhound fails to communicate that information to passengers. They need an accurate map of their own routes first, which is nowhere to be found. Even their financial report has a grossly inaccurate map.
> 
> And the inaccurate route map on Greyhound's official website still hasn't been fixed. The map on the System Timetable is also inaccurate. How do you track buses without route maps?


What's to say Greyhound isn't fixing the maps alongside with introducing a tracking feature?

If it operates anything like Amtrak's track a train system, the position of buses will could appear on a online map (like google maps). I imagine the position of the bus will be updated by the CADEC system.

At the moment Greyhound's dispatchers may have access to that GPS data, but they fail to communicate that in any meaningful way to customers, even though the station agents.

I can't say this enough... live bus tracking is HUGE. It's one of the biggest missing pieces for Greyhound.

Look, I'm no fan of Greyhound's seats, but I actually think the lack of real-time arrival information is a bigger problem. People can plan their lives with that data, instead of having to show up to the stop early and wait and wonder if the bus will arrive.


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## Swadian Hardcore

Well, I think most people will simply expect the bus to arrive on schedule. Greyhound claims to have 89% OTP to a 15-minute standard. They could use Google Maps for bus tracking, but they don't have their own route map, which is a serious problem. It takes only one hour to fix the route map. I'm shocked that my e-mails to Greyhound about the route map went unheeded.


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## railiner

Apparently, the powers at Greyhound don't think that their customer's are capable of reading a map, just as they don't think they are capable of reading a timetable....so they don't give much priority to correcting the erroneous map....

The maps they have must be produced by the same wizard that programs their TRIPS computer's insane routings, but that is another can of worms.....


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## Swadian Hardcore

Does Greyhound even have an accurate map of their own routes? I bet even the CEO doesn't have one.


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## railiner

Swadian Hardcore said:


> Does Greyhound even have an accurate map of their own routes? I bet even the CEO doesn't have one.


That's a good question....

They are probably too embarrassed by the sad shadow of what used to be, to mount a nice one on the boardroom wall....


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## Swadian Hardcore

Yeah, I remember reading a book that said Carl Eric Wickman would sit back in his chairman chair when he was tired and look at the massive Greyhound map across from him in his office.

Now I guess David Leach doesn't have his own "United States of Greyhound" map.

I've seen some Greyhound maps mounted in bus terminals, but all are old and outdated.


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## oiky

If only there was a live bus tracker, I could sit here and see myself not moving on a broken down bus 40 miles east of Kingman, AZ. The joy


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## Swadian Hardcore

Do you have the bus number?


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## oiky

85784 and still here!


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## rickycourtney

oiky said:


> If only there was a live bus tracker, I could sit here and see myself not moving on a broken down bus 40 miles east of Kingman, AZ. The joy


Ugh. That sucks. Hope you get moving soon and that Greyhound gives you some sort of compensation.

While you wouldn't get anything from a live bus tracker (you know where you are) the passengers who are waiting to board that bus (with no clue where it is and likely getting no update from the station agent, who also likely doesn't know) would benefit.


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## oiky

Maybe it could show us where our replacement bus is. We've been here nearly 4 hours and it still gonna be another hour coming from Vegas!! It must be coming here in reverse gear


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## Swadian Hardcore

#85784? I'm surprised! That one's an ex-Carolina Trailways DL3. I wonder what it's doing on the Las Vegas-Phoenix route. I did hear on the live grapevine that Las Vegas ran out of buses. They were using a X3-45 on the Transcon, which is regularly-assigned a Blue G.

Greyhound doesn't have a Maintenance Center in Las Vegas, which may be the problem. They're going to have to call a replacement bus with an emergency replacement driver, which would be an on-call extra board driver. Also, #85784 probably can't directly contact the replacement bus.

Ricky's right, the guys in Flagstaff waiting to go to Phoenix are going to be pissed because the Flagstaff station doesn't know where the bus is. But again, the bus tracking would be confusing without a map to track with, and Greyhound doesn't have any accurate map of their routes whatsoever.


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## rickycourtney

Swadian Hardcore said:


> #85784? I'm surprised!


I'm not, it's a 15 year old bus.


Swadian Hardcore said:


> But again, the bus tracking would be confusing without a map to track with, and Greyhound doesn't have any accurate map of their routes whatsoever.


Why couldn't you just display the location of the buses on an online map like Google Maps? 
You can tell people how fast it's traveling, distance to next stop, estimated time of arrival and the amount of time the bus has deviated from the schedule.

Buses mostly follow the highways, so I don't really see why you need a line on a map for that.

The problem as I see it is that, to my knowledge, Greyhound doesn't have set routes. If you put fixed routes on a street level mapping system, passengers will question why


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## Swadian Hardcore

You don't get it. I was surprised because I was not expecting an ex-Carolina DL3 to be running Las Vegas-Phoenix. It's not based out of Los Angeles. I guess it could be based out of Saint Louis, because Saint Louis has a run to Phoenix. Or maybe it's based out of Denver.


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