
Competing with Greyhound: My NYC/Chicago Bus Venture - zackattack
http://www.zacharyburt.com/2010/06/competing-with-greyhound-my-nycchicago-bus-venture/
======
icefox
I really hate when people tell me that flying between point A and B take X
hours and then try to compare it to a train/car/bus/etc. I leave and arrive
_in_ the city on a train/bus/car. Can you buy the JetBlue ticket for $69 hours
(or minutes, or ON THE PLANE?) before takeoff?

The most important question though is if I left my [place of residence] when
would I arrive at [destination] and what would my total cost be? Is the
airport an hour outside the city and a $50 cab ride? How many _HOURS_ do you
have to show up to get on the plane? Taking luggage? Add another half hour
minimum to your trip. And not to mention the fun security theater of the
airports.

I drive from Boston to Toronto and it is faster door to door than flying and
is a much better experience. Chicago from NYC would be longer at 13 hours so
flying would be faster. Busses need to compete on other things. Treating you
like a human, having wifi and power jacks. perks like ipads on the bus, free
books, or gut half the seats and setup poker tables, video games. A bus that
is made up of half beds. Themed busses, something, anything to make it more
then just a bus trip, something you could charge much more than planes and
people would want to use it. Go after a different market then who is currently
riding the bus. Charge $500 for a bus ticket and think what you could do
provide for that overhead.

~~~
zackattack
Somebody suggested that it could be turned into an overnight hotel / bus
combination.

------
SwellJoe
I think this would be more accurately titled "My NYC/Chicago Bus Thought
Experiment". You haven't actually ventured anything other than a little time
and a few bucks for market research.

~~~
_delirium
The conclusion also seems unsupported. Is it really the case that "running
just one bus line could be profitable"? My guess is that it wouldn't be
profitable, because it's fairly expensive to operate, and cheap flights (as
noted in the post) put a cap on how much you can charge.

Maybe someone like Megabus could do it profitably, because they have some
economies of scale and existing capital equipment, but I'd be really surprised
if a small-time operation running a single Chicago<->NYC bus were profitable.

~~~
zackattack
I meant to indicate that it could possibly be profitable - not that it would
be profitable. I'll refine my language in the future.

------
hotpockets
look at the megabus route map: <http://us.megabus.com/routemap.aspx>

Their rapid expansion across the midwest and east coast makes me think Megabus
will likely offer soon a way to get from Chi to NYC. Perhaps the trip would
take as long as the greyhound trip, I don't know. But its worth keeping an eye
on. They have seemed to add routes about every 3 months or so. Connecting the
midwest to the east coast would seem a natural progression.

~~~
jim-greer
Looks like they already do cover the midwest pretty well - they just don't do
14+ hour routes. Probably since you have to switch out the drivers (and a lot
of passengers would spring for the plane at that distance).

------
melling
NYC to Chicago is about 720 miles. That's about 3.5hrs by train...sometime in
our lifetime. Exactly when is just a matter of deciding to spend the money.
The technology was invented 50 years ago.

------
blahedo
Stop in Cleveland as a halfway point and you add in at least a few more
potential customers without losing the basic "express" nature of the bus.

------
eli
Seems like if the route proved popular, a big company like MegaBus (Coach USA)
would swoop in and undercut you.

