More than a third of Bolt and Megabus riders in the Boston-to-Washington corridor say they would have taken an Amtrak train if the “new model” of bus service were not available. (The new model relies on curbside stops instead of stations, mainly non-stop service between cities instead of multiple stops between major cities, internet ticket sales, and fares set by yield management–with the first seats sold going for very low prices.) Amtrak lost far more customers to the new model than conventional carriers such as Greyhound.
To reach this finding, Joseph Schwieterman–a professor of public service at DePaul University–and his students and associates at the Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development surveyed nearly 400 Bolt and Megabus riders in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, as well as nearly 400 Megabus riders and 275 Greyhound passengers in Chicago, Indianapolis, and St. Louis.
The surveys revealed that 22 percent of Bolt/Megabus riders in both the Northeast and Midwest were “new trips,” or trips that would not have been taken without the low-cost carriers. But 34 percent of the Northeast riders and 22 percent of Midwest riders were diverted from Amtrak, the smaller number in the Midwest being due to Amtrak’s poorer service in that region. Amtrak lost more riders than either conventional carriers such as Greyhound or Chinatown buses, which lost 18 percent in the Northeast and 10 percent in the Midwest.
A relationship cannot be happy, cialis pharmacy prices learningworksca.org if it lacks the sexual pleasure. The issue of kidney damage can be a major cause for cialis tablets for sale cardiac arrest? Smoking causes artery stiffness by acute deposition of carbon into them, thus elevating the CLD levels in the body which is the root cause these symptoms can continue to exist undetected. The goal of physical therapy for whiplash patients is to help reduce muscle spasms, increase blood circulation and promote healing of damaged nerves and tissues in the reproductive organs through ensuring more blood and oxygen supply. learn this here now viagra sample canada Be that as it may it is emphatically proposed to counsel a medicinal spe pfizer viagra generict with respect to fitness to have dynamic sex and its measurement. About 23 percent of Northeast riders and 32 percent of Midwest riders were diverted from auto driving, while 6 percent of Northeast and 15 percent of Midwest riders were diverted from flying. The Midwest Greyhound surveys found that the running dog captured 20 percent of its riders from the air, 29 percent from cars, and 24 percent from Amtrak, while most of the rest said they wouldn’t have traveled if Greyhound did not exist.
Another interesting finding is that only 16 to 17 percent of riders were taking business trips. If someone else is paying the fare, people are more likely to use the high-cost options.
Interestingly, the study did not survey passengers in Boston, which has required all bus companies to use the same bus station, making it unrepresentative of “curbside” service. The report noted that “the findings suggest that requiring curbside operators to use existing bus stations would have potentially negative implications on a sizeable share of their clientele.”
My own estimates indicate that Bolt and Megabus carry about 4 million trips per year inside the Northeast corridor compared with Amtrak’s 10.4 million. These numbers do not count trips that go slightly outside the corridor such as New York to Hartford or Philadelphia to Norfolk. That suggests that Amtrak is losing about 1.4 million riders a year to these two companies, or almost 14 percent of the number it did carry in 2010. All scheduled bus carriers combined carry close to 14 million trips in the corridor, and it is likely that the various Chinatown buses and other companies take their own toll on Amtrak.
The Antiplanner’s recent paper on intercity buses cited several of Schweiterman’s earlier reports on the subject. Schweiterman and his associates seem to be the only academic researchers who are scrutinizing the rapid growth of the intercity bus industry, which is a dramatic contrast to all the reports on phantom high-speed trains written by various university transportation centers.
Awww, let’s hear all the crying now. The complaining that Megabus is “subsidized” (while conveniently ignoring the taxpayer-crushing subsidies rail receives). The hand-waiving about the need to double-down on Amtrak “investments”, because if you’re losing money on every rider, you just make it up on volume, right? Feel free to add to my observations.
I welcome the competitive service that Megabus and the others provide, as long as the drivers of the buses and the buses themselves are safe. Sometimes this is not the case (example here).
So I believe that safety enforcement of interstate bus traffic by the states (and mostly funded by the federal government) is a good form of government intervention and spending.
I have decidedly mixed feelings about curbside bus service, as in the “curb” part. On the one hand, it allows buses to drop-off customers at places that are convenient for same. On the other hand, are the buses using streets that are designed for heavy bus traffic, and are the boarding and alighting points safe?
I don’t think I have a problem with mandating or encouraging the buses to use a bus station either, that creates something of a critical mass for the buses, and for other transportation services (like taxicabs).
The Antiplanner wrote:
But 34 percent of the Northeast riders and 22 percent of Midwest riders were diverted from Amtrak, the smaller number in the Midwest being due to Amtrak’s poorer service in that region. Amtrak lost more riders than either conventional carriers such as Greyhound or Chinatown buses, which lost 18 percent in the Northeast and 10 percent in the Midwest.
Silly me, I thought that everyone was taking Amtrak and that ridership on Amtrak’s trains was setting some kind of record. Not that it matters, because in most parts of the country, Amtrak patronage is so small that it is simply part of the “noise” in travel data.
And Amtrak happily replaces its own trains with buses anyway, as they recently announced in this press release describing the impact of CSX track work in Cumberland, Maryland on the Capitol Limited headed eastbound from Chicago to Washington.
I think this is a case of the more the merrier, where promoting more carless options leads to more ridership for everyone, because effective frequencies of service increase and the size of the network grows.
If Megabus is getting 1/3 of its riders from Amtrak, it certainly doesn’t show in the Amtrak ridership.
Another interesting finding is that only 16 to 17 percent of riders were taking business trips. If someone else is paying the fare, people are more likely to use the high-cost options.
That’s one way to interpret the data, another is that business travelers have different needs than the riders of intercity buses, who are primarily seniors and students. Business travelers are likely both to value their time more highly and to demand better reliability and on-time performance. This would also explain why the Northeast Corridor is so much better at picking up business travelers than other Amtrak routes: it’s much faster and much more reliable than passenger rail service in much of the rest of the country, and less susceptible to congestion- or weather-related delays than highway travel.
I have decidedly mixed feelings about curbside bus service, as in the “curb†part. On the one hand, it allows buses to drop-off customers at places that are convenient for same. On the other hand, are the buses using streets that are designed for heavy bus traffic, and are the boarding and alighting points safe? – C.P. Zilliacus
Can’t you solve the negative effects there by charging market rates for curb space, and charging buses an appropriate vehicle-miles traveled tax or congestion tax to pay for the wear-and-tear they inflict on roadways?
If all road users actually paid for the system, buses would likely still come out ahead of private cars, as their higher passenger density allows for a VMT or congestion fee to be spread across more fares.
Amazing that Megabus or companies like it have achieved such rapid success in such a short amount of time. They didn’t require a politician behind a podium advocating for something he may never use or go to the voters to pass some measure to pay for it all. No real construction costs and their operating expenses are very low. Buses have evolved from their stereotypical assumption of dirty, smelly, urine soaked boxes into an otherwise comfortable conveyance.
“Buses have evolved from their stereotypical assumption of dirty, smelly, urine soaked boxes…”
I haven’t been on a intercity bus since visiting Eastern Europe a few years back, and a Greyhound in the states almost seven years ago. My experiences were ok on both, and in Eastern Europe, buses are far quicker, cheaper, and more comfortable than trains.
But city buses in the States continue to be dirty, smelly, and urine soaked. The last time I was in SF, a seemingly homeless guy in a wheelchair sitting right in front pissed his pants all over the MUNI bus. It smelled so bad that I almost puked. I got off the bus and decided to walk or take a cab, but at least I found the second oldest saloon in the city. But yeah, I refuse to ride city buses because of incidents like these.
So how did this intercity bus industry come about? What Act of Congress stimulated the industry? What university research was it based on? Which NGOs and foundations funded the research that made it possible?
Clearly there should be Nobel or Pulitzer prize awarded for proving that a gap existed in the free market.
Sandy Teal:
how did this intercity bus industry come about
Most of the first intercity bus operators were RAILROADS. Same thing with most of the first trucking companies
Our government, in its ever infinite wisdom, smelled a “monopoly” and forced their divestiture, just as it forced electric utilities to divest their streetcar and interurban railroad subsidiaries.
Isn’t it a GOOD THING that we were protected from the horrors of an integrated non-automotive travel and freight shipping network? Imagine the national nightmare that might have ensued!
Andrew:
According to all the movies and high school history books, the railroads were all evil monopolies and run by robber barons. Wasn’t the Government politicians just spinning them them as evil and then demanding they “pay their fair share.”
are the buses using streets that are designed for heavy bus traffic, and are the boarding and alighting points safe?
Do you really worry about stuff like that? It just would never occur to me to even think about such things. You see, I figure that the bus companies and the passengers are able to think for themselves.
But, then, that’s just me, I guess.
Government barely lifted a finger to assist Megabus, surprisingly it prospered. They deserve a “Economics” Nobel Prize for profitable public service.
Al Gore does not deserve the Nobel Peace Prize, afterall predicting catastrophic climatic doom is peaceful???????
Lazy Reader:
Government barely lifted a finger to assist Megabus, surprisingly it prospered.
You mean aside from the multi-trillion dollar investment in the paved road system in this country?
I mean OTHER than that, sure, the government didn’t lift a finger.
Give it a break, Andrew. Getting rail service to the same area would take several hundred trillion and wouldn’t be as efficient as the car is.
Andrew, please show sources on claim of $trillions paid by gov, which are NOT by user-based fees, nor from property taxes for local roads. (intercity buses hardly using anyway)
Suppose only general taxes go for roads.
How unjust? 85%+ drive; almost 100% travel on roads & benefit from goods transport.
Your alternative proposal is for many to pay for a very few (<1%) to travel between cities. Proper?
Confront me & try to rob/mug me like you want to do to others, I will defend myself.
If you have a big weapon, like the gov, you will win.
Is that justice?
Scott:
Again, the gas tax is not a user fee. It is a tax. It was originally a tax dedicated to general revenues for deficit reduction.
As to the rest of your bluster, I think I fail to see where I was proposing anything here? Maybe you can point to it. I merely made the observation that the very existence of the intercity bus system relies on a multi-trillion dollar government investment in roads, in response to a claim of where did the government even lift a finger to help Megabus out.
If people who believe in government infrastructure had not stepped in to get paved roads and expressways built in this country, the precious Megabus would be running on a dirt path.
Sure Andrew, if “gubmint” hadn’t stepped in and paved everything, we”d be joyfully traveling everywhere via rail and trolley. Get real!
If people who believe in government infrastructure had not stepped in to get paved roads and expressways built in this country, the precious Megabus would be running on a dirt path.
That might be a bit of an exaggeration, Andrew. It was the League of American Wheelmen – a bicycling advocacy group – that got the pavement movement…erm…moving, esp after WWI where the army trucks tore up the cheap paving installed in the recent past. Their Good Roads movement culminated in Wilson’s signing of the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916.
So bikes would have ensured there was pavement to ride on. Right, Randal?
;o)
DS
[/interpreter hat]
CPZ, Amtrak will also detour trains where it can too, though keep in mind that the US is missing 100,000+ miles of rail line. This isn’t good for freight trains as well.
Scott:
Even if the gas tax were to be construed as a user fee rather than a tax, it still only covers about half of the expense of building highways, and it covers none of the negative externalities associated with driving, like particulate pollution that causes respiratory disease in populations living near highways.
Even if the gas tax is set higher, it still wouldn’t be a user fee. Sparsely-traveled roads in the middle of the country and in rural areas never see enough traffic to justify the cost of building and maintaining them on a purely financial analysis. I guess the “gubmint” saw some “value” to opening up large areas of the country and including them in a transportation network, instead of seeing them largely landlocked and cut off from the national economy.
Andrew, I did not type gas taxes are “user fees”. Please pay attention. I referred to “user-based fees” & not just gasoline, but other payments to the gov, based upon vehicles. C’mon!
On average, the more miles driven –> the more gas tax paid, plus there are “base” gov charges for vehicles.
Non-vehicle owners don’t pay those.
Should there not be taxes trying to approximate to usage, but each person pays directly?
Divide the gov protection (military, police, fire courts, etc.) among each person?
Parents pay for kids’ school?
A vast majority pay for <4% using public transport.
See the difference, hypocrisy & cognitive dissonance?
Please explain why you have problems w/some discrepancy in direct, actual costs per mile being paid for by drivers. Don't forget to account for all the truck transport of goods, which benefit all.
No comment on Property taxes paying for many infrastructure cost.
Do you propose a big cut in them & that each resident should purchase any gov service, as is mostly done for retail?
Are you aware that mass transit is only widespread at densities above ~10,000 ppl/sq.mi, in which <10% of the people live?
Moreover, much of rail is for long commuters [white-collared; whom have cars] to the CBD?
Do you yearn for transit in Manhattan, @ 66,000 ppl/sq.mi.?
Tickets don't cover costs, & housing is $3X+ the national avg.
Was part of your complaint that highways are used buses?
Is that counter to whatever your point is?
No comments on this?:
For any general taxes on roads. How unjust? 85%+ drive; almost 100% travel on roads & benefit from goods transport.
Andrew,
Oh per your minor points:
Rural areas?
Those state & US highways w/lower traffic have much less cost & were mostly built more than 60 years ago. Negligible.
No Federal help to rural areas? You are against rural electrification & even the USPS there?
How did the gov “open up” rural areas? Your history is opposite.
The US was mostly rural (agrarian) as opposed to only about 20% now, of which about half are still attached to a metropolitan [or micropolitan] area.
Housing costs/prices are much lower in rural areas.
Know some of the reasons?
It’s hardly tax displacement.
Scott: For any general taxes on roads. How unjust? 85%+ drive; almost 100% travel on roads & benefit from goods transport.
THWM: Now you’re defending socialist/communist policy.
Highman,
How are the roads a “socialist/communist policy”?
What’s your preoccupation w/using leftist terms?
It has been rather obvious that you do not understand those meanings or use those those labels for non-intellectual reasons.
There’s a huge spectrum (not binary categories) for gov in the services provided & how that’s paid for.
Do you propose that each person pay directly for everything?
Example: divide gov protection among each person?
You often apply fallacies & Alinsky rules to items.
Is that because you like deception to push toward whatever goals you have?
Or just illogical, nonsensical & narrow-minded ranting, without much consideration of facts, concepts & reality?
Please try to distinguish between items, such as public goods — used by a vast majority, sometimes indirectly & non-excludable.
All gov spending is about 45% of GDP.
Are conditions better than a decade ago w/10%-points less?
Hey Scott, don’t bother trying to reason with Highwayman; he’s not here to intelligently debate us.
Scott, Metrosucks, you guys just don’t want to be reasonable or even consider that there are other people in the world.
Highman, “be reasonable”?
You have never tried that.
You label, defame, generalize & crap.
Care to address previous points?
There are many dozens pending.
Logic, facts, principles — leading to various conclusions?
Oh yeah, keep forgetting that you have no intent in intellectual discussion — Metruks helps to remind me.
Intercity bus service has been banned in Germany for 79 years to protect/subsidize the government-owned railroads.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/10/business/global/10bus.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=global-home
Scott, if you can’t or won’t see what is right in front of you I can’t help you.
Abracadabra, I the great Bolt-ini am gonna make these passengers disappear.
LazyReader; Abracadabra, I the great Bolt-ini am gonna make these passengers disappear.
THWM: Are you going to go postal?
(Advance warning: long)
Surely government road subsidies/investment do have a lot to do with Megabus and BoltBus being successful. After all, if it took six and a half hours to go from Washington DC to New York, instead of the four and a half hours, almost no-one would use it.
Megabus originally was a UK operator (indeed, they still are; they also have a “Megatrain” operation that sells train seats on some Stagecoach-owned train companies, and even a “MegaBusPlus” operation that combines a train journey from London to East Midlands Parkway with an onward coach journey). Their fares can be cheap, but often are similar to or more than National Express (the main UK coach company) charges. Certainly at short notice National Express can often be cheaper.
In the UK, scheduled coach travel (as distinct from group tours) is not popular outside of specific niches (e.g. routes not served by rail, Oxford to London, travel to/from airports, travel in Scotland by Entitlement Card holders who travel free). British coaches are speed-limited to 62 mph, and get stuck in motorway and city traffic (especially since the roads into and out of city centres are often congested). Bus stations have a tendency to be grotty, and kerbside bus stops often have no amenities, even a timetable, and no assurance that the tour coach that went past with an A4 card in the windscreen isn’t your coach that you’re just missed. These factors are absent in the USA, thus making coach travel relatively more attractive compared with rail travel.
For a specific example, and note that I’m typing this at about 0100 on Sunday 27 November, consider travel from Liverpool to London, about 210 miles, on Tuesday. Megabus takes at least 5 hours 55 minutes, with two departures, and costs £7.50 one-way including mandatory booking fee. National Express takes from 5 hours 25 hours, offers 7 departures, and costs from £6.00 one way. By train, London Midland still have one-way fares for £11.00 at various times throughout the day, taking 3 hours 45 minutes with one transfer. Cheap tickets on the faster Virgin Trains services are scarce, except on late-night milk-runs (there are still some £11.50 tickets on the 2048, arriving 2356 (a full hour slower than a typical daytime train) and there are some £30.50 one-way tickets during the day). There is a semi-reasonably-priced “off-peak” ticket costing £69 one-way or £70 return (don’t ask). It is so popular that the first “off-peak” trains tend to be much busier than the “peak” trains (but since an “anytime” ticket costs £130.50 one-way or £261 return this is understandable).
By contrast, Washington to New York is about 225 miles and takes 4 hours 30 minutes on Megabus, with 17 departures on Tuesday and costing from $13 each way. Amtrak doesn’t have anything less than $80 one-way, on a Regional (from 3 hours 14 minutes), and the cheapest Acela is $142 (taking 2 hours 42 minutes). The advantage to taking Acela over Regional is much less obvious, and even that of a Regional over a coach less clear than in the UK. Again, it is the investment the state and federal governments made in roads (to allow coaches to do this distance in 4.5 hours instead of 6 hours or longer) that makes Megabus competitive.
Have any of the people here ACTUALLY USED any of these bus services, or Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor? I have, and here’s how it goes down:
* The train is the fastest, most convenient and most reliable option around. Especially south of NYC. Even the “non-high-speed” trains go 120+ mph through most of New Jersey. Unlike the rest of the country, Amtrak runs a vital, profitable operation in the Northeast.
* Compared to the spacious, comfortable accommodations on the train, the bus feels more like cramming onto a commercial jet. But that said, MegaBus and BoltBus are still excellent values, and far “better” than the scuzzy, over-priced busses that came before.
* The express bus services tend to be full of young adults, not homeless people.
* Two big innovations about the new bus services vs. the old Greyhound: guaranteed reservations and Wi-Fi. No longer do you wait in line for an hour for a bus, only to find out it’s full and you have to take the next bus. I would never waste my time on that. But I will pay $20 for a seat on BoltBus.
* If you want a truly comfortable bus that even comes close to Amtrak, then you need to take a Luxury bus (eg, Limo Liner). Unfortunately, their prices look a lot more like Amtrak prices than MegaBus. But it’s good to know that such a thing is possible, and they do a decent job of giving you a spacious, comfortable ride.
* Amtrak tickets on the Northeast corridor are $49 each way if you buy them 2 weeks in advance. And they are fully refundable. You can make several reservations and then cancel the ones you don’t need at the last minute, if you wish. You can’t do that with the buses: they are cheap, but fares are generally non-refundable. But you can’t wait until your travel plans are set either — because by then, the bus you actually want to take will be sold out.
* Amtrak has early-morning departures that will get you to where you’re going in Boston, New York or DC by 9AM or 10AM. The earliest buses don’t arrive until about an hour later, making them impractical for making same-day business trips.
I hope this makes it clear why business travel still prefers Amtrak: it is comfortable and reliable, you can get work done on the train, and it gets you there while it’s still morning. The buses are great values for personal travel, but they don’t do any of those things.
And driving your car? Anyone who has tried that along the I-95 corridor knows better. The buses are cheaper than gas + tolls, not to mention wear and tear on your vehicle, driver fatigue, traffic hassles, parking, etc.