# FirstGroup weighs sale of US school bus and public transit units (in addition to Greyhound)



## rickycourtney

*Financial Times: FirstGroup weighs sale US school bus and public transit units*



> The bus and train operator will “explore all options” for First Student and First Transit, “including a potential disposal”, the company said in a statement on Monday.
> 
> First Student operates over 42,500 buses in the US and Canada and brings some 5m students to school each day, according to FirstGroup’s website. Its First Transit division is one of the biggest private providers of public transit across the two countries, transporting 324m passengers a year.



FirstGroup also put Greyhound up for sale earlier this year, citing competition from low-cost airlines and a drop in demand.

The sale of these groups would be a big change in the bus landscape in the US and Canada.


----------



## railiner

Good luck trying to unload Greyhound Lines...


----------



## Willbridge

railiner said:


> Good luck trying to unload Greyhound Lines...


There is less and less to unload. When the _Pioneer_ was discontinued there were three GL schedule paths a day between Denver and Portland. Now there is one, etc. The award-winning Portland GL station is closed and their remaining service is making the same curbside stop as the newcomer, Flix. In studying their recent reductions I think it is fair to say that they are in the same network condition as rail passenger service was in the late 60's.


----------



## railiner

Willbridge said:


> There is less and less to unload. When the _Pioneer_ was discontinued there were three GL schedule paths a day between Denver and Portland. Now there is one, etc. The award-winning Portland GL station is closed and their remaining service is making the same curbside stop as the newcomer, Flix. In studying their recent reductions I think it is fair to say that they are in the same network condition as rail passenger service was in the late 60's.


Not as good. There is no regulation that requires them to run any service in the US. They can just shut down at will.

And it is entirely unlikely, the government would bail them out, or create a “bustrak” to replace them.
In a few places, local governments have run some sort of accommodation to take elderly from rural locations to “town” for essential medical or shopping visits, but no “national network”...


----------



## Willbridge

The pattern that is developing in the U.S. and Canada is regional systems, whether government or private. As I've referred to before, this fits with Kneiling's prediction that economies and consequent politics would focus on international airports. And it fits with the Buffalo Commons concept. I'm not endorsing forcing these theories on people; a government that is truly concerned with national unity might resist these trends, but "unlikely" is a likely word. In developing the Colorado network we linked it into the Denver Union Station with good access to Denver International Airport, but have managed to keep the "national" Amtrak element so far.

https://ridebustang.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denver_Union_Station
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attract...ews-Denver_Union_Station-Denver_Colorado.html


----------



## rickycourtney

I think that’s there’s argument to be made that the collapse of Greyhound, the last remaining nationwide bus line, would be as detrimental to many small communities. 

A similar argument was made 48 years ago when the passenger railroads were on the verge of collapse. 

There’s a lot of little towns in the US where the single daily Amtrak train or single daily Greyhound bus is the only connection to the rest of the nation without having a reliable car.


----------



## railiner

A lot has changed in those years...
Low cost air travel has replaced the bus for most long haul trips. There are few people today who do not drive, or have access to an automobile. And where there is a strong need, regional bus services do exist. And there is still an Amtrak around, and it gets pretty good support...not likely to go away.

Buses will never enjoy that support...


----------



## AmtrakBlue

railiner said:


> A lot has changed in those years...
> Low cost air travel has replaced the bus for most long haul trips. There are few people today who do not drive, or have access to an automobile. And where there is a strong need, regional bus services do exist. And there is still an Amtrak around, and it gets pretty good support...not likely to go away.
> 
> Buses will never enjoy that support...



Those “few” people who don’t drive still need a way to get to that airport 4 hours away.


----------



## railiner

AmtrakBlue said:


> Those “few” people who don’t drive still need a way to get to that airport 4 hours away.


Not enough of them to warrant a bus.
People can get a ride from friends or relatives, or in some cases take a taxi or ride share...


----------



## rickycourtney

railiner said:


> A lot has changed in those years...
> Low cost air travel has replaced the bus for most long haul trips. There are few people today who do not drive, or have access to an automobile. And where there is a strong need, regional bus services do exist. And there is still an Amtrak around, and it gets pretty good support...not likely to go away.
> 
> Buses will never enjoy that support...


Fair points, but couldn’t the same be said for trains? 

Low cost air travel has replaced the train for most long haul trips. There are few people today who do not drive, or have access to an automobile. And where there is a strong need, regional train services do exist. 

In fact, that’s pretty much the argument Richard Anderson made to Congress last month. 

You could also write a similar argument for small towns with “Essential Air Service” subsidies.

So when is it proper for the government to step in to maintain a minimal level of scheduled transportation services to these communities that otherwise would not be profitable?


----------



## railiner

I think we are pretty much at that very point today...things are more or less in balance, regardless how partisans one way or the other would like it to be...


----------



## MARC Rider

railiner said:


> I think we are pretty much at that very point today...things are more or less in balance, regardless how partisans one way or the other would like it to be...


Tell that to people to who can't drive and can't get a ride to an airport 4 hours away or afford a a taxi ride for that distance.

Also, private automobiles and air travel are about the least environmentally sustainable modes of travel one could devise. As a matter of policy, we should be doing everything we can to discourage people from traveling by those means. 

Furthermore, alternative transportation modes ensures reliability through redundancy. I'll bet people were sure happy after 9/11 that they could still get places by bus and train even after all the planes were grounded for several days.

We spend lots of tax money subsidizing roads and the air travel system, so what's the problem with subsidizing some alternative modes of travel? People, actually do use them, and there's an important social benefit.


----------



## railiner

There are very few people that can’t get a ride somewhere, from family or friends, if they can’t drive themself. While it might be nice to have some accommodation for them....at what cost?
Just what numbers would it take to make this viable and sustainable?

Clearly the demand is not strong enough to sustain losing routes without subsidy.
Another failure of deregulation...

During the regulated era, major carrier’s were protected from cut-throat competition on lucrative routes, but were required to “cross-subsidize” money losing branch lines where there was a necessity to provide local services.
And they could pay a decent wage to their drivers and terminal employees as well.

Nowadays, new entrants only want to cherrypick the choicest routes to operate.


----------



## AmtrakBlue

railiner said:


> There are very few people that can’t get a ride somewhere, from family or friends, if they can’t drive themself. While it might be nice to have some accommodation for them....at what cost?
> Just what numbers would it take to make this viable and sustainable?
> 
> Clearly the demand is not strong enough to sustain losing routes without subsidy.
> Another failure of deregulation...
> 
> During the regulated era, major carrier’s were protected from cut-throat competition on lucrative routes, but were required to “cross-subsidize” money losing branch lines where there was a necessity to provide local services.
> And they could pay a decent wage to their drivers and terminal employees as well.
> 
> Nowadays, new entrants only want to cherrypick the choicest routes to operate.


"There are very few people that can’t get a ride somewhere, " And you know this for a fact?


----------



## Willbridge

"...another failure of deregulation..." Actually, the decline of regular route intercity bus service was underway by the time we cautiously identified it in the 1975 Oregon Intercity Bus Study. Several things happened that undercut the traditional cross-subsidization of small-town people by big-city people before low-cost air service was a factor. People who asked me why I supported motor carrier deregulation got to hear an explanation of why regulation for other than safety and normal business behavior was crumbling.


----------



## railiner

No one can say for sure, but based on what I have observed, just about everyone can get a ride from a neighbor or friend, or family member if necessary, unless they are some hermit, but in that case, they probably have no reason to travel anyway.

Sure, you can find some exceptions, if you look hard enough, but not enough to make a subsidized run cost effective, as compared to other essential social services that would yield a better cost benefit return.


----------



## railiner

Willbridge said:


> "...another failure of deregulation..." Actually, the decline of regular route intercity bus service was underway by the time we cautiously identified it in the 1975 Oregon Intercity Bus Study. Several things happened that undercut the traditional cross-subsidization of small-town people by big-city people before low-cost air service was a factor. People who asked me why I supported motor carrier deregulation got to hear an explanation of why regulation for other than safety and normal business behavior was crumbling.


One of those things was small town people 
were driving themselves, and were not riding the cross-subsidized routes...


----------



## neroden

rickycourtney said:


> I think that’s there’s argument to be made that the collapse of Greyhound, the last remaining nationwide bus line, would be as detrimental to many small communities.



It will be. Here are the political issues:
(1) Very few people genuinely like bus travel. So it has a weak political constituency.
(2) The "red" states simply will not vote to have state-subsidized bus service (never seen it happen). Because some people genuinely prefer trains, they will sometimes support state subsidized train service. But usually they just subsidize roads.
(3) The "blue" states will provide state-subsidized bus service, for the benefit of those who can't afford cars, but would mostly prefer to subsidize trains. Subsidized bus service will stop at the border of the first red state. California and Colorado are clear examples; there are some less clear examples of state funded intercity service oin the East Coast.
(4) Red states are not turning blue fast enough to outrun the collapse of Greyhound.

Greyhound's biggest service cutback was in the Canadian Prairies and Maritimes; those routes are gone and never coming back.

It does accelerate the decline of the rural towns which lose service. When they keep voting for politicians who fund roads and do not fund buses or trains, well, I am pretty comfortable watching them decline by their own hand.

When they are voting to fund service, then I say, give them service.


----------



## neroden

I just looked up the 2019 Greyhound map -- they finally published one, after not publishing a map for years.

https://www.greyhound.com/-/media/greyhound/images/discover/2019-greyhound-network-map.pdf

Not much service. Green is codesharing partners, who are used to bulk out the map and make it look less pathetic. (Jefferson Lines is covering the Dakotas, and to their credit, they are apparently providing good service.) Greyhound Canada has been reduced to an Ontario company with a branch to Montreal. 

An extraordinary number of the Greyhound routes are simply *paralleling* Amtrak, which is not good for either organization; if there were any sort of government bailout, those routes ought to be the first to be axed in favor of trains. Several of the others are routes which have tracks and ought to have passenger trains (such as El Paso - Odessa/Midland - Abilene - Fort Worth, or Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati -- or Grand Rapids-Lansing-Detroit where the state government actually wants to resume train service). Quite a lot more are actually paralleling other codesharing bus companies' routes, which again just drives both companies out of business.

A little research shows me that when Greyhound Canada scrapped almost all route, the province of British Columbia, stepped in and hired a company (Pacific Western) to run "BC Bus North" service. Alberta ended up subsidizing a small amount of disconnected bus service as well. Saskatchewan did nothing, Manitoba did nothing, and Ontario ignored Western Ontario. The bus routes don't form a network any more.

Maritime Bus has a more-or-less viable network in Maritime Canada, but it stops at St. Stephen, NB and Riviere-du-Loup, Quebec, not really making it to the national bus or train networks of the US or Canada. Disconnected.


----------



## Willbridge

railiner said:


> One of those things was small town people
> were driving themselves, and were not riding the cross-subsidized routes...


True, but there are some other things going on. Volunteer hours are being eaten up by driving people who don't have family or friends to impose on. And, there is a lot of deadheading and wasted time for family and friends. (That is why we have native American tribes stepping up to run intercity service -- it's a more efficient way of fulfilling the communal responsibility that they feel.) It all feeds into the stress on small-town and rural America.


----------



## Willbridge

neroden said:


> I just looked up the 2019 Greyhound map -- they finally published one, after not publishing a map for years.
> 
> https://www.greyhound.com/-/media/greyhound/images/discover/2019-greyhound-network-map.pdf
> 
> Not much service. Green is codesharing partners, who are used to bulk out the map and make it look less pathetic. (Jefferson Lines is covering the Dakotas, and to their credit, they are apparently providing good service.) Greyhound Canada has been reduced to an Ontario company with a branch to Montreal.
> 
> An extraordinary number of the Greyhound routes are simply *paralleling* Amtrak, which is not good for either organization; if there were any sort of government bailout, those routes ought to be the first to be axed in favor of trains. Several of the others are routes which have tracks and ought to have passenger trains (such as El Paso - Odessa/Midland - Abilene - Fort Worth, or Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati -- or Grand Rapids-Lansing-Detroit where the state government actually wants to resume train service). Quite a lot more are actually paralleling other codesharing bus companies' routes, which again just drives both companies out of business.
> 
> A little research shows me that when Greyhound Canada scrapped almost all route, the province of British Columbia, stepped in and hired a company (Pacific Western) to run "BC Bus North" service. Alberta ended up subsidizing a small amount of disconnected bus service as well. Saskatchewan did nothing, Manitoba did nothing, and Ontario ignored Western Ontario. The bus routes don't form a network any more.
> 
> Maritime Bus has a more-or-less viable network in Maritime Canada, but it stops at St. Stephen, NB and Riviere-du-Loup, Quebec, not really making it to the national bus or train networks of the US or Canada. Disconnected.



Alberta fell into it without a plan, initially on a route by route basis. The irony in Saskatchewan's case is that the CCF-NDP (social democrats) set up provincially-owned Saskatchewan Transportation Company in 1946 as a near monopoly, to the outrage of Greyhound Lines of Canada. Political changes led to the current laissez faire solution in 2017.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saskatchewan_Transportation_Company

Jefferson Lines goes all the way west to Spokane. I have used their well-run service between Missoula and Billings. At the time Amtrak started up, GL had three daily schedules between Chicago and Seattle, competing against two daily NP trains. Two connecting buses in Spokane went to Portland, a third went to San Francisco via US97 with a connection at Biggs Junction for Portland. Only one JL schedule path follows the former NP line SPK - MSP. A second SPK - MSP path diverges at Billings and runs via Sioux Falls.

The phenomenon of route "parallelism" is something that I've been looking at since that 1975 bus study. There is something about a train that is magic, i.e., it draws competition. And conversely, when train service is withdrawn (which I've witnessed over and over), there is one generation of bus riders left and then the parallel bus service is withdrawn or restructured. Exceptions apply where populations have grown immensely and/or there is a large number of undocumented non-drivers. The Canadian Greyhound implosion fits that theory when one considers that western VIA Rail service is only a token.

As Oregon and Washington have proved, the way to get good bus service is to put on a train.


----------



## Willbridge

neroden said:


> It will be. Here are the political issues:
> (1) Very few people genuinely like bus travel. So it has a weak political constituency.
> (2) The "red" states simply will not vote to have state-subsidized bus service (never seen it happen). Because some people genuinely prefer trains, they will sometimes support state subsidized train service. But usually they just subsidize roads.
> (3) The "blue" states will provide state-subsidized bus service, for the benefit of those who can't afford cars, but would mostly prefer to subsidize trains. Subsidized bus service will stop at the border of the first red state. California and Colorado are clear examples; there are some less clear examples of state funded intercity service in the East Coast.
> (4) Red states are not turning blue fast enough to outrun the collapse of Greyhound.
> 
> Greyhound's biggest service cutback was in the Canadian Prairies and Maritimes; those routes are gone and never coming back.
> 
> It does accelerate the decline of the rural towns which lose service. When they keep voting for politicians who fund roads and do not fund buses or trains, well, I am pretty comfortable watching them decline by their own hand.
> 
> When they are voting to fund service, then I say, give them service.



Colorado has a route that crosses the border into a red state -- GL table 364 runs DEN-SLC via US40 with CDOT sponsorship and FTA 5311f funds. It is run jointly with Utah. When GL withdrew from OMA-DEN the initial replacement service was run with CDOT sponsorship and Nebraska's Department of Roads did nothing. Bit by bit, the bus service gained riders and the direct subsidy was dropped. Colorado also jointly sponsored a 5311f service with KDOT between Wichita and Pueblo. It was withdrawn due to low ridership. In Colorado it was replaced with a Lamar - La Junta - Pueblo - Colorado Springs run on the classic "into town in the AM and return home in the PM" schedule, almost connecting with Trains 3 and 4.

A lot of this has to do with how much flexibility a state has legally and whether their civil servants have the brains to figure out solutions that meet local needs and legal/fiscal requirements.


----------



## railiner

And that is the problem...just like rail travel, not every state is interested in providing subsidized transportation services. So while states like New Jersey are almost completely covered by both rail and bus services, other states have practically nothing. So there goes the chance of having a national 'network' , at least as far as buses go...


----------



## Metra Electric Rider

I think you guys are forgetting at least two other potential factors: 

1. The rise of superbargain companies like Megabus siphoning off their profitable routes (at least that's my suspicion).

2. Cars becoming cheaper and more reliable (there have been numerous articles about this, primarily used cars, though they aren't cheap, they last longer) over time, also siphoning off riders who either couldn't afford a car in the past or had a car that they could drive over a distance. 

Also, low gas prices, comparatively, means it is fairly cheap to drive as well. I'm wondering if the privatization of much of the drivers ed system will also increase non-drivers in the long term.


----------



## MARC Rider

Metra Electric Rider said:


> I think you guys are forgetting at least two other potential factors:
> 
> 1. The rise of superbargain companies like Megabus siphoning off their profitable routes (at least that's my suspicion).
> 
> 2. Cars becoming cheaper and more reliable (there have been numerous articles about this, primarily used cars, though they aren't cheap, they last longer) over time, also siphoning off riders who either couldn't afford a car in the past or had a car that they could drive over a distance.
> 
> Also, low gas prices, comparatively, means it is fairly cheap to drive as well. I'm wondering if the privatization of much of the drivers ed system will also increase non-drivers in the long term.


Good points, but:

1) Megabus, etc. are still bus companies, which means that bus service is still preserved. Tough luck for Greyhound, though, and, of course, if Greyhound was cross subsidizing complete national route coverage with their profitable routes, then getting hit by Megabus throws a wrench in that practice. I believe that Bolt Bus, one of the budget lines, is a Greyhound subsidiary. 

2) I'm not sure that cars are becoming cheaper, and the price of used cars is ridiculous. In fact, combined with the fact that income for the masses isn't keeping pace with the cost of living and job security is a thing of the past, I don't know how the masses can even afford to buy a beater used car anymore. Yeah, people are keeping cars longer, but that trend has been around for 20+ years now. 

I think the only way people are still buying cars is that the loan terms have been stretched out -- 60 month (5 year) auto loans are common now, and I've even seen advertisements for 72 month loans. At some point, it's going to be like a mortgage, the interest paid will be more than the price of the car. But it's a hell of thing for a proletarian worker-grunt to have to commit to in today's gig economy. Can we say "debt peonage," everybody? 

3) In real dollar terms (i.e., adjusted for inflation) the price of gas is about the same as it was in 1973, before the oil shocks. Of course, that makes it relatively cheap to drive, but it's always been that way, especially if your party consists of more than one person.

4) I'm not sure whether the privatization of the driver's ed system will result in a significant chunk of the population being unable to drive, but there is a social trend of large numbers of the younger generations who live in urban areas deciding that they don't want or need to be able to drive. This has concerned the auto industry greatly, as this also means that there may be less demand for the purchase of cars. 

I've been to conferences where people in the various parts of the transportation industry are talking about selling "mobility as a service" rather than a product like a car. Of course, good bus and train service should be a part of that, but, naturally, the industry would rather design and sell self-driving pod vehicles, hyperloops, and other cool advanced technology rather then boring old stuff like buses and rail vehicles.


----------



## Willbridge

Bolt is part of Greyhound. In Portland they even laid over in the Greyhound station, deadheading to and from their nearby curbside location. This Christmas season the competition was joined by Flix in the Northwest on slightly different service patterns than Bolt. Amtrak and the legacy Greyhound trips (Table 601) also have different service patterns. This makes it hard to make perfect comparisons; however as I followed the clues in the four respective booking websites for the peak Christmas travel days it was difficult to find any sold-out trips. Bolt had several, Amtrak, Flix and GL were in the higher price ranges, but if they sold out it was at the last minute. In looking at maximum prices, it appeared that Amtrak acted as a ceiling, i.e., once Bolt and Flix fares neared Amtrak coach fares the bus fares flatlined. Business Class on Amtrak did well.

Regarding the auto market there was a university study in LA that identified low interest rates as a factor, and there may be long-term consequences. When for any reason rates go up, it may be hard to afford replacement autos. And the availability of used autos with easy terms (rates and/or payment time) is helping to fuel the "drive till you qualify" move of lower income families into the doughnut ring suburbs where there are physical barriers to non-auto modes. I think of a lady weeping on the phone when I explained as gently as I could why there was zero chance for her to get transit service at her new mountain-side home. She had moved there and then developed progressive vision loss heading toward blindness. If/when the used auto market sinks, there will be a lot of that.

Getting back to the intercity bus industry, suburban sprawl is another negative factor. It turns out that it's less time-consuming for a corridor train to add a suburban stop than for an express bus to wend its way off and back on the highway. In some cases intercity buses can piggyback on transit bus facilities, but these are not always set up well for i.c. routes. Flix tries to get around this in big markets by running direct trips for diverse locations.


----------



## MikefromCrete

Coach USA has announced it is shutting down the Chicago Trolley Co., a firm that operates double deck buses and replica trolley bus in the sightseeing business in Chicago. It is also shutting down an airport bus service from Northwest Indiana to Chicago airports. Must be tough times in the bus business.


----------



## metrolinecoach111

MikefromCrete said:


> Coach USA has announced it is shutting down the Chicago Trolley Co., a firm that operates double deck buses and replica trolley bus in the sightseeing business in Chicago. It is also shutting down an airport bus service from Northwest Indiana to Chicago airports. Must be tough times in the bus business.



It's an after effect of the sale of Coach USA from late 2018 to Variant Equity. After taking a year to look at the entire operation, they're starting to pare down operations in low-yield, low growth areas. Leisure operations outside the Northeast have struggled in particular, thus these closures and the shut down of the Disneyland Express in California. We should expect more of the same in 2020.


----------



## metrolinecoach111

Willbridge said:


> Bolt is part of Greyhound. In Portland they even laid over in the Greyhound station, deadheading to and from their nearby curbside location. This Christmas season the competition was joined by Flix in the Northwest on slightly different service patterns than Bolt. Amtrak and the legacy Greyhound trips (Table 601) also have different service patterns. This makes it hard to make perfect comparisons; however as I followed the clues in the four respective booking websites for the peak Christmas travel days it was difficult to find any sold-out trips. Bolt had several, Amtrak, Flix and GL were in the higher price ranges, but if they sold out it was at the last minute. In looking at maximum prices, it appeared that Amtrak acted as a ceiling, i.e., once Bolt and Flix fares neared Amtrak coach fares the bus fares flatlined. Business Class on Amtrak did well.
> 
> Regarding the auto market there was a university study in LA that identified low interest rates as a factor, and there may be long-term consequences. When for any reason rates go up, it may be hard to afford replacement autos. And the availability of used autos with easy terms (rates and/or payment time) is helping to fuel the "drive till you qualify" move of lower income families into the doughnut ring suburbs where there are physical barriers to non-auto modes. I think of a lady weeping on the phone when I explained as gently as I could why there was zero chance for her to get transit service at her new mountain-side home. She had moved there and then developed progressive vision loss heading toward blindness. If/when the used auto market sinks, there will be a lot of that.
> 
> Getting back to the intercity bus industry, suburban sprawl is another negative factor. It turns out that it's less time-consuming for a corridor train to add a suburban stop than for an express bus to wend its way off and back on the highway. In some cases intercity buses can piggyback on transit bus facilities, but these are not always set up well for i.c. routes. Flix tries to get around this in big markets by running direct trips for diverse locations.



Great recap - one point regarding Flix: many of their West Coast and Texas based routes feature multiple stops in metro areas to create greater access points for people to join the route. "Direct" on the website does not always equal express. For example, their 5:10pm departure from Dallas to Houston yesterday included three stops in Metro Dallas and two stops in Metro Houston. They're building out a different type of network than what Greyhound has established nationally but with the same premise of providing network access on a regional scale. Their core competency of leveraging technology to align schedules and route patterns to actual demand (they will often run a different schedule product everyday and change those schedules on a near monthly basis) will serve them well as long as they can maintain the service quality.


----------



## metrolinecoach111

rickycourtney said:


> I think that’s there’s argument to be made that the collapse of Greyhound, the last remaining nationwide bus line, would be as detrimental to many small communities.
> 
> A similar argument was made 48 years ago when the passenger railroads were on the verge of collapse.
> 
> There’s a lot of little towns in the US where the single daily Amtrak train or single daily Greyhound bus is the only connection to the rest of the nation without having a reliable car.



While the brand may be in flux, the network will survive in some form through interline agreements, regional operators jumping in to fill the void and state subsidized services (which is one of the few bright spots in the national intercity bus narrative). 

One overlooked part of the national network is that the actual network is NABT (National Association of Bus Traffic). While Greyhound operates the largest and most well known distribution portal, the network itself can and will live on. Scale and scope - that's another story....


----------



## metrolinecoach111

neroden said:


> I just looked up the 2019 Greyhound map -- they finally published one, after not publishing a map for years.
> 
> https://www.greyhound.com/-/media/greyhound/images/discover/2019-greyhound-network-map.pdf
> 
> Not much service. Green is codesharing partners, who are used to bulk out the map and make it look less pathetic. (Jefferson Lines is covering the Dakotas, and to their credit, they are apparently providing good service.)
> 
> An extraordinary number of the Greyhound routes are simply *paralleling* Amtrak, which is not good for either organization; if there were any sort of government bailout, those routes ought to be the first to be axed in favor of trains. Several of the others are routes which have tracks and ought to have passenger trains (such as El Paso - Odessa/Midland - Abilene - Fort Worth, or Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati -- or Grand Rapids-Lansing-Detroit where the state government actually wants to resume train service). Quite a lot more are actually paralleling other codesharing bus companies' routes, which again just drives both companies out of business.



The routes paralleling Amtrak = where there's profitable demand for LD travel. In the era of deregulation, the company's routes either have to make money, have someone else (state, private org) pay for it, or be an essential part of a money making operation to survive. There are no ifs, ands and buts about it. The company needs to pursue profitable operations in order to survive.

Most of Greyhound's "growth" over the past few years outside the Northeast, California and cross-border areas have come from state-subsidized services, which have helped many of these rural areas stay connected to the network.


----------



## metrolinecoach111

Metra Electric Rider said:


> I think you guys are forgetting at least two other potential factors:
> 
> 1. The rise of superbargain companies like Megabus siphoning off their profitable routes (at least that's my suspicion).
> 
> 2. Cars becoming cheaper and more reliable (there have been numerous articles about this, primarily used cars, though they aren't cheap, they last longer) over time, also siphoning off riders who either couldn't afford a car in the past or had a car that they could drive over a distance.
> 
> Also, low gas prices, comparatively, means it is fairly cheap to drive as well. I'm wondering if the privatization of much of the drivers ed system will also increase non-drivers in the long term.



I'll give you one other factor - the public perception of the brand itself. When you type Greyhound in Google, most days you see negative news and commentary. Their word of mouth reputation is.....well....

It's one thing for a transport company to have a negative reputation and low fares if the perceived value proposition received is greater than "you get what you pay for." See Spirit, Allegiant and Frontier. It's a completely different story when people actively run away from a brand so they don't have to deal with the aggravation and baggage that comes with patronizing its services.


----------



## Palmland

It would seem that it’s a natural fit to have Greyhound fully integrated into Amtrak including scheduling, routes, terminals, fares, and customer service. With the exception of ‘experiential’ trains, where the volume warrants you ride a train, where it doesn’t you ride a bus.

So, for example, if you live in Nashville you ride a bus to Atlanta for eastern points on the Crescent, to Birmingham for southern and southwest points on Crescent/ SL, or to Memphis for CONO to Chicago and western points. Some states, like NC and CA have already figured that out.

Cities without Amtrak and rural towns get better service and LD routes get more passengers.


----------



## jebr

metrolinecoach111 said:


> I'll give you one other factor - the public perception of the brand itself. When you type Greyhound in Google, most days you see negative news and commentary. Their word of mouth reputation is.....well....
> 
> It's one thing for a transport company to have a negative reputation and low fares if the perceived value proposition received is greater than "you get what you pay for." See Spirit, Allegiant and Frontier. It's a completely different story when people actively run away from a brand so they don't have to deal with the aggravation and baggage that comes with patronizing its services.



Definitely. It doesn't help that Greyhound has stations that often are worn down, dirty, and just feel extremely unpleasant to be in. In the dozen or so times I've been in the Chicago Greyhound station, I don't recall a single time that the men's bathroom has been even remotely clean. It also has been common for me to get on a Greyhound bus and have it feel very worn, with the seat either being uncomfortable or having something broken on it. Mix that with more competitive alternatives across the board (the curbside buses taking a fair amount of the short-distance market, and the ULCCs often being cheaper than Greyhound on comparable routes) and there's not a lot of reason for someone to choose Greyhound if another alternative exists.


----------



## daybeers

metrolinecoach111 said:


> While the brand may be in flux, the network will survive in some form through interline agreements, regional operators jumping in to fill the void and state subsidized services (which is one of the few bright spots in the national intercity bus narrative).
> 
> One overlooked part of the national network is that the actual network is NABT (National Association of Bus Traffic). While Greyhound operates the largest and most well known distribution portal, the network itself can and will live on. Scale and scope - that's another story....


You wouldn't see those regional services on the Greyhound website though, correct? If not, that makes it terrible Greyhound is pulling out of routes. How can people figure out you can take two buses to get from their hometown of 1,000 people to Chicago?

That's one of the biggest issues with public transportation, especially in the U.S. with its ridiculous car culture: if you want to get somewhere without a car, you have to research it. How often does the bus/train/ferry/tram/subway come? How early/late does it run? What are my first mile/last mile options? How much does it cost? Can I use cash/credit card or do I have to purchase a card? Are there multiple operators? If yes, I might have to purchase multiple cards. Can I bring my bike/stroller easily? Does bringing a bike cost money or require a reservation? If I'm traveling with others, will we be able to sit together? Is there a shelter to wait in? A person I can ask questions?

What's nice is third-party websites like Rome2Rio and Wanderu make comparing transportation modes easier, but you still may have to go to multiple operators to purchase tickets. However, often (unless you use IRS reimbursement rates) driving is cheaper than other modes, depending on how you calculate it. Just gas, sure, driving is relatively cheap if your vehicle gets good gas mileage. Add in driver's license renewals, insurance, registration, tolls in some places, hotels if on a long journey, tickets, parking, maintenance (oil, brakes, shocks, sparkplugs, wheels, etc), and other modes are often cheaper.


----------



## jebr

daybeers said:


> You wouldn't see those regional services on the Greyhound website though, correct?



I think one of the requirements for getting federal money for the state-subsidized routes is that they have to be listed on NABT or a similar service. I know the regional carrier here, Jefferson Lines, shows up on Greyhound's website, and Jefferson Line's website shows Greyhound connections along with other regional bus carriers (Burlington Trailways, Indian Trails, etc.) As long as that requirement stays in place, there should be some availability to interconnect with some services.

That said, I still agree with the rest of your post. There's a lot of transit options that aren't available through that service, and even Google Maps,. Wanderu, and Rome2Rio don't find all of them. There's a couple of Mexican bus lines that leave from St. Paul and Minneapolis that I haven't found listed anywhere other than at the Mexican supermarkets where they pick up and their own company websites. Having all of the options available under one clearinghouse, with one unified purchase option, and with some protection for connections (even as simple as "yes, we'll put you on the next bus at no charge") would be a huge help to the ground transportation landscape in the US.


----------

