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Meeting the Challenge of Attracting New Riders.
Intercity Bus E-News, August 2024
August 7, 2024 | Caption: Peter Pan bus at Hyannis, MA, July 2024
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Editor’s Perspective
Amtrak’s long-ago slogan, “We’re making the trains worth traveling again,” sprung to mind this week as I considered the state of intercity bus travel. Much like Amtrak in the 1970s, bus lines need ways to convince prospective riders that they’re making buses “worth traveling again.”
| Let me explain. Airlines and Amtrak are on the cusp of ridership records and rolling out new services. See our feature below on Amtrak’s new Borealis train. The cruise business is booming. Bus lines are working hard behind the scenes, adopting new tech platforms, deploying new coaches, and pushing for better punctuality. But some of the marketing swagger I expected this summer can’t be found. | Last year was different. Bustang and first-class operator Vonlane rolled out significant expansions. Booking sites underwent titanic changes, with Greyhound adopting reserved seats and establishing new connections with FlixBus, reducing travel time on many routes. Transcor Data Services’ advanced new booking technology was making news. Atlanta opened an impressive new bus line station. While not necessarily headline grabbers, such moves indicated a sector bouncing back. | |
This year's developments have been more muted, and press releases have been fewer in number. The Coach USA bankruptcy has laid bare the sector’s post-pandemic weakness (see below). The cumulative effects of announced or actual station closings, particularly Greyhound’s in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dallas, Houston, Philadelphia, and Tampa, aren’t imbuing confidence in the pleasantries of bus trips requiring transfers.
This summer hasn’t necessarily been financially disappointing for bus lines. Seat occupancy and fares both appear relatively strong. Carriers have held back from adding seats, which helps the bottom line. Expectations weren’t terribly high, so profits may well be on target.
| But wouldn’t it be nice if summer once again brought a parade of new offerings and conveniences to convince reluctant travelers that the buses are worth traveling again? We should stay optimistic. State networks are flourishing, with some adding routes (see below). Landline continues to expand its airline partnerships. New York is thinking big regarding its downtown terminal. FlixBus and several other brands have rolled out new routes. I saw overflowing coaches on my recent trip to Cape Cod (see feature below). | Hopefully, the industry’s post-pandemic transformation will kick into a higher gear this autumn. Stay tuned to Intercity Bus E-News for the latest developments. | |
Joseph Schwieterman, PhD
Intercity Bus E-News Editor | Professor and Director, Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
Caption (above): FlixBus is boarding at the Los Angeles - UCLA stop in May 2024
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The Jet, the first-class line linking New York and Washington and known for its patented “Hoverseats” featuring motion-canceling technology and extensive on-board service, now boasts the Hamptons Streamliner, described as “the most advanced and enjoyable coach service between New York City and the Hamptons.” The ultra-premium service, linking Manhattan to Southampton, Bridgehampton, & East Hampton, is part of a partnership with Blade, a global urban air mobility platform with numerous helicopter and jet charter routes, including air routes to the Hamptons. The service runs from Memorial Day to Labor Day. This is aimed at the affluent, with one-way prices usually starting around $195.
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FlixBus has added a direct Phoenix–San Diego service, filling a gap in the US ground transportation network and allowing customers to avoid transfers in Los Angeles. This once-daily route, stretching more than 360 miles and with stops including El Centro, CA, and Yuma, AZ, may be a seasonal offering, as it appears on schedules through September. FlixBus launched the Allentown, PA–New York service in spring. Separately, Greyhound has returned to Des Moines. IA through an extension of its Chicago - Davenport, IA route. This local service via DeKalb, IL is about an hour slower than Burlington Trailways' twice-daily express runs but provides an earlier-in-the-day option in both directions.
| How big has the FlixBus–Greyhound network become in the USA, Canada, and Mexico? A March press release noted that “12 million people traveled with FlixBus and Greyhound in 2023, approximately 36% more than in 2022. The total revenue increased by 11% to EUR 615 million, supported by improved network management following the full migration of Greyhound into the Flix booking platform in February 2023.” Such detailed traffic reports are rare for North American intercity bus travel. | |
Maine now has “The LAP,” a new intrastate bus route linking Lewiston and Auburn with the Portland Transportation Center, where transfers to other bus services and Amtrak’s Downeaster can be made. Made possible by $2.8 million in public funds and facilitated by the Maine Department of Transportation, LAP’s schedule shows 13 weekday trips in each direction and nine weekend trips over a 40-mile route. Concord Coach phased out its Lewiston service roughly the same time the new service started.
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Nebraska’s Open Plains Transit launched a new rural route linking Valentine and North Platte, dubbed “the first-ever north–south intercity bus route through Nebraska’s midsection.” The 130+ mile "Red Line". operating twice weekly and made possible by federal, state, and local support, supports connections to long-distance bus services to Denver and other cities at North Platte. Free rides were provided for a limited time due to a charitable grant; otherwise, fares are just $2. Open Plaines was one more than 80 public entities participating in the National Rural Transit Assistant Program's National Rural Transit Day on July 16. The E-News editor last wrote about Valentine when studying the abandonment of the legendary “Cowboy Line” (C&NW) railroad route decades ago.
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The Michigan Department of Transportation and numerous agencies in the Wolverine State have embarked on an “Advancing Rural Mobility” pilot project. This initiative will support the creation of new online tools for rural public transit agencies and their riders “to help plan their trips, find transit services more easily and provide for a better overall travel experience.” Made possible by a USDOT Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation (SMART) grant, the collaboration includes Benzie Bus, Cadillac/Wexford Transit Authority, and Charlevoix County Transit. We applaud such efforts, which can help overcome the difficulty of planning trips on the country’s expansive rural bus system.
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The lull in electric bus rollouts on intercity bus providers persists. No significant electric bus rollout has come to our attention (except for short-hop rural transit routes) since the Amtrak Thruway service launched in the Pacific Northwest, operated by MTR Western last summer. Besides the higher purchase price of fully electric buses, the time needed for charging, which compounds schedule complexity, remains an obstacle. The March rollout of the Volvo BZR Electric bus, which has a high-floor model, could change things, as it uses the same batteries as Volvo electric trucks and simplifies maintenance, but that remains to be seen. Earlier this year, FlixBus piloted an electric bus service between England and Wales.
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Academy Bus is working on a new shuttle program for Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, FL, offered in partnership with Uber and Transportation Management Services. Ticket holders for stadium events can book demand-responsive coach services to area locations afterward. We hope to hear much more about this novel effort to leverage motor coach service on ground-mobility platforms. This can reduce the chaos of hundreds of people simultaneously summoning rideshares after major events.
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Soaking up the Innovation on Cape Cod
By Joe Schwieterman
| A cavalcade of industry “best practices” crossed my path in Massachusetts last month. A few minutes after my flight arrived at Boston Logan Airport, I saw long queues next to motor coaches that had staged only steps from baggage claim. This arrangement amplifies the power of plane-to-bus transfers, eliminating the need to tote your bags onto a shuttle or people-mover as required at many other airports, including, most recently, Chicago O’Hare. I was also impressed that Concord Coach, Dartmouth Coach, C&J Bus Lines, and Boston Express commuter service all run at least hourly throughout much of the day from Logan, something road-weary fliers appreciate, while Peter Pan has routes fanning out in numerous directions. | |
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The marketing muscle that bus lines have by making airports and downtown terminal stops in quick succession also stood out. Each of the five bus lines is scheduled in this manner. My C&J coach made a seven-minute stop at the South Station Bus Terminal, which, while adding time, supported transfers from Amtrak, transit, and other intercity buses while also informing airport riders that taking the bus is a good option for getting to downtown Boston. Salt Lake Express schedules this way in Salt Lake City, as do FlixBus (and Amtrak) in Milwaukee and Virginia Breeze in Washington, DC. This stop sequence, though, isn’t practiced in many parts of the country, in some cases because airports and downtown are too far apart but in others for less compelling reasons.
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Six people alighted at a state-managed park-and-ride facility at Barnstable, which had a shelter with bench seating, a bike rack, and long-term parking options—something I wish was more common outside New England. At Hyannis’ Transportation Center, where I alighted, a staffed ticket booth, ample seating, clean restrooms, digital screens displaying bus routes, and a covered walkway showed that the bus is not a “mode of last result” in these parts. The Cape Flyer from Boston (a train running once daily but only on weekends) adds to the bustle, and ferries are within walking distance. Hyannis, of course, is famously affluent—I doubt that the most prominent of the Kennedy family regularly ride buses to reach their Hyannis compound—but the Transportation Center showed how thoughtful planning can make bus travel attractive to broad customer segments.
The Martha’s Vineyard Transit Authority, a prominent rural operator, had an attendant on duty at its busy Oak Bluffs hub. With peak-season crowds everywhere, the attendant diligently updated riders on arrivals and enforced the boarding queue. Buses to Edgartown stop at a tourist center with restrooms and a tidy retail shop. I bought a day pass on my phone without trouble.
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Did I see problems? Yes. Riding “up the Cape” can involve sitting in traffic, just like for those driving, which is made worse by bridge construction this summer. Cape Cod’s bus system is not well-integrated into the national network. Buying a “through ticket” from Hyannis to New York and other Northeastern points is possible (often involving Peter Pan), but not to most points farther south or west. There haven't been bus services with seating more spacious than conventional coaches from Boston or other points near the Cape since the 2020 demise of LimoLiner’s service to New York.
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Even so, my trip to “The Capital of the Cape” shows how bus lines, with attention to customer care, can exceed expectations | |
Coach USA Bankruptcy, What's Next? | |
Coach USA’s bankruptcy is among the most significant setbacks for the intercity bus industry since the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the nation’s largest passenger transportation companies, Coach USA operates a wide range of charter, suburban, and intercity services. The latter category includes ShortLine, an upstate New York mainstay; Van Galder Bus Lines, which has a frequent Chicago–Wisconsin service; and Megabus, which was behind only Greyhound in passenger traffic for many years. (The Chaddick Institute began tracking the intercity bus industry upon the arrival of Megabus in Chicago, its first US hub, in 2006.)
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The initial bankruptcy plan, announced in June, called for selling the company’s units concentrated in Canada, the Northeast US, and the Midwest to affiliates of The Renco Group, a private holding company. Several units in the US South were among those to be sold to affiliates of Avalon Transportation. However, it is murky whether Megabus operations will be included in these transactions, and certain parts of the bankruptcy plan apparently await court approval. | |
The latest updates we’ve heard is a mix of good and bad. On the good news side, many of Coach USA’s intercity units operate mostly as they did before, with August schedules largely unchanged from June, although apparently trimmed on some routes. New York–Washington, DC schedules appear slightly diminished, while those on other Northeast routes, including New York–Philadelphia, seem mostly unchanged. Over the past several years, before the bankruptcy filing, Megabus dropped its California, Midwest, Tennessee, Upstate New York, and New England services. As a result, Megabus stopped being a carrier with a genuinely national network. | |
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As for the bad news, Coach USA notified New Jersey Transit that it would prematurely terminate contracts for 20 bus routes in metro New York. This has resulted in some scrambling by agency personnel and has caused some ridership headaches. Plus, Megabus is scaling back after Labor Day, having dropped its schedules in the Texas Triangle (previously cut back to specific days of the week) and between Washington and the Carolinas. Ominously, the company shuttered a bus facility in Hyattsville, MD, that serves Megabus Northeast LLC, its regional operating unit, resulting in 62 job losses.
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Another problem for Megabus is that competition for bus passengers remains fierce, as evidenced by significant expansions to FlixBus, OurBus, and RedCoach. Consequently, there are more significant concerns about the future of Megabus than most other Coach USA intercity units, although it must be acknowledged that everything is impossible to predict. | |
Regardless of what happens, the megabus.com booking platform, which boasts high levels of consumer awareness and is used by many independent bus lines, appears poised to continue. A feature of the booking site’s recent expansion has been adding carriers that do not geographically overlap, which bus line managers appreciate. By early fall, we’ll have much more to report. | |
Amtrak’s Borealis Train Builds Bus-Rail Synergy | |
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Amtrak’s June launch of the Borealis, a Chicago–Milwaukee–Twin Cities train, gives train travelers a second option on this route, complementing the Empire Builder. The train’s significance to E-News readers might seem to mainly be the resulting traffic shift from buses to trains. After all, bus lines previously had the only morning westbound departure and the only midday (or later) departures eastbound on the route among ground transportation modes, which is no longer the case. Patronage on the new train has been strong.
A closer look, though, reveals that the Borealis enhances the intercity bus network in several notable ways. It plies a route many consider too lengthy for regular bus travel, with the fastest bus trip taking around eight hours, comparable to the Empire Builder but too long to make the bus a mainstream option. (The Borealis is about a half hour faster). Significantly, the Borealis augments bus–train synergy, giving westbound passengers using Amtrak Thruway (via Greyhound) buses from Nashville, TN, Louisville, KY, and Indianapolis, IN, more convenient connections in the Windy City. The new train also reduces travel times on mixed-mode trips from these cities by several hours.
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Plus, eastbound travelers now have a 10-hour St. Paul–Green Bay, WI, option via a bus transfer at Milwaukee, which is several hours faster than before. Although that option is far slower than Coach USA’s direct St. Paul–Green Bay service, which runs in six hours via Wausau, WI, it gives loyal train riders another choice.
Perhaps most importantly, the Borealis makes St. Paul Union Depot a more powerful intercity hub, benefiting Coach USA, Greyhound, Jefferson Lines, and FlixBus, which began using the station only this month. Some travelers who would otherwise drive or fly may now be inclined to ride the Borealis in one direction and take an intercity bus in the other. There are still no eastbound trains after 11:50 a.m. from the Twin Cities to Milwaukee and Chicago, giving FlixBus and Greyhound, which have later departures, an opportunity to pick up riders.
| However, it is disappointing that Amtrak Thruway bus connections are unavailable from St. Paul to Duluth, MN, or from Madison, WI to Columbus, WI (a Borealis stop just 31 miles away). FlixBus, Greyhound, and Jefferson all offer direct service from St. Paul to Madison. | |
Trailways.com adds Greyhound & Google Maps features
The Trailways.com and Trailways.ca booking platforms now added Peter Pan services, continuing a trend that started several years ago, resulting in more prominent brands besides Trailways units, such as the Midwest’s Indian Trails, joining these platforms. These additions give these platforms much more comprehensive coverage across the mainland US. Furthermore, we have noticed that new itineraries involving connections between Peter Pan and specific Trailways units have also recently appeared. For example, you can book a Boston, MA–Buffalo, NY, trip that entails riding Peter Pan to Albany and transferring to New York Trailways for the remainder of the journey.
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Trailways also announced that its “customers and travelers can now access service options, pricing, and up-to-date schedule information about current arrivals and departure times on Google Maps, which were previously only available on Trailways.com.” This uses General Transit Specification Feed data files. Later in 2024, the GTFS feed will provide “trip updates, such as delays, cancellations, and changed routes, as service alerts in real-time due to unforeseen events affecting a station or route.” Alex Berardi, president of Trailways.com and Trailways.ca., noted, “We are proud to make our schedules and fares available to Google users, and we look forward to enriching our feed with more helpful information this year.”
| Station News from Across the Country | |
BOSTON. Work is rapidly progressing on the tower built atop Boston South Station train platforms, allowing for a 50% floor-space expansion at the adjoining Bus Station. As we noted in our 2024 Outlook for the Intercity Bus report, this busy station has more than 50 daily departures to New York alone. The adjacent photo shows the construction underway.
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 |  | CHICAGO. Advocacy organizations are pushing the City of Chicago to prevent the demise of the Chicago Intercity Bus Station, a relatively modern downtown facility used by Greyhound, Baron Bus, Burlington Trailways, and FlixBus. Greyhound’s lease of the facility ends in October, but operations may need to be moved in September due to the lease conditions. The station’s loss would likely force bus lines to substantially reduce the sale of “through tickets” requiring transfers in Chicago--a significant blow to the national intercity bus network. Over two dozen organizations signed a letter to Mayor Brandon Johnson extolling the station’s importance and arguing that bringing the station under public ownership could significantly improve the state’s and region’s fragmented bus network. As an example of the fragmentation, Peoria Charter Bus Lines, which does not use the station but had a curbside spot next to Union Station, was recently forced to relocate to a less desirable site under an expressway viaduct. We’ll send E-News updates to keep readers informed of this serious problem and info on our upcoming webinar.
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NEW YORK New York remains a hotbed for intercity bus news. The first phase of work has begun on the $10 billion revamp of the Port Authority Bus Station, which includes a deck-over of Dyer Avenue to enable bus service to continue during construction. There is a concern about expected capacity limits during subsequent construction phases, and the project’s expected completion date remains unclear. Governor Kathy Hochul, meanwhile, “paused” New York City’s congestion pricing program at the last moment for economic reasons. The congestion fee could have given a boost to intercity bus travel.
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PENSACOLA, FL Greyhound has relocated from its dedicated station at 505 W. Burgess Road, near Highway 29, in Pensacola to a Circle K gas station at 3225 West Nine Mile Road. The Burgess Road facility (pictured at right) had indoor waiting and offstreet parking
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PHILADELPHIA. The Philadelphia year-long “bus stop saga” continues. Following the 2023 closing of the city’s longstanding Greyhound Station in the heart of Center City, numerous bus lines, including Greyhound and Peter Pan, moved to the curb on Market Street, only to soon move again to a more outlying location, which also involves curbside boarding and alighting. This latest move also generated neighborhood pushback, so the possibility of moving activity to a downtown parking deck is being explored. This would allow operations to be moved off-street (and, significantly, out of the view of area residences) and have room for an indoor waiting facility with a ticketing counter and spacious restrooms. Although this option seems promising, it also generates pushback. Much credit goes to the City of Philadelphia for having an experienced consultant systematically explore the many options for solving this vexing problem, an option we wish more cities pursued.
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Photo: Light Rain in the Sunshine State | |
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This scene from Tampa's Marion Transit Center encapsulates some of the salient issues affecting the intercity bus industry. The Greyhound Connect minibus has just completed a run on a state-supported route from Tallahassee, which serves several small-town stops with no other scheduled long-distance transportation options and allows passengers to connect to many distant destinations. The transit center, equipped with an indoor waiting room and restrooms, was made available to the bus line after the city's traditional intercity bus station closed earlier in the year. On this drizzling afternoon, passengers scurried to the waiting room from platforms without canopies.
Caption: A passengers disembark from a Greyhound Connect bus at Tampa in December 2023
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