A Better Ride Than Ever

30 years ago Cosmopolitan columnist and travel writer Irma Kurtz spent several months crisscrossing the US on Greyhound Lines, Inc. (GLI) as documented in her book The Great American Bus Ride (1993).?The intercity bus trip has changed a lot since then.

?Although a positive and even affectionate portrayal it is also an unvarnished look at the motorcoach industry at its lowest ebb a decade after airline deregulation and the development of LCCs combined with the massive Amtrak subsidies that continue to this day. ?Some of the customer service experiences she recounted (e.g., the Minneapolis bus terminal café proprietor and a Duluth ticket agent who should not only have been fired but criminally prosecuted) were bad beyond measure.

?As shown here Motor Coach Industries (MCI) MC-9 which ceased production in 1990 was the backbone of the GLI fleet at the time.?Though durable and reliable it was hardly an exceptional passenger experience.?Much of the OTRB industry was comprised of small generational family owned companies with as few as one or two buses serving their local communities with feeder fixedroute services and charters. That business model had worked well in the rough – and-tumble start of the industry 70 years earlier but not for the digitalization I knew was coming to mobility.

?Partly inspired by Ms. Kurtz’ book I wrote my first ever TranspoTech publication for the Winter 1995 edition of ‘Bus World.’?Then in my 20s, I was the young guy that had a bunch of crazy ideas about how technology could transform transportation.?Three decades later I am gratified to see millennials and GenY actually putting into practice ideas I always knew would work.?Stations are now often obsolete thanks to GNSS based systems to facilitate curbside boarding and alighting along with contactless e or mTicketing, while microtransit challenges the notion of what buses themselves should look like.

?Meanwhile Craig Lentzch, President and CEO 1994-2003 and arguably the best top executive the company has had since it was founded in 1914, pulled GLI and effectively the entire industry back from the brink to enter the 21st Century as the strong transportation resource it is now.?Coach USA and others acquired and integrated the small obsolete carriers.?MCI introduced the Renaissance ushering in a new level of style and comfort for all bus OEMs.

?Now with onboard Wi-Fi, premium service options, and other tech and physical amenities a long distance coach journey is in many was superior to the ever increasing misery of airline travel.?While a bus journey is always an adventure, it has become infinitely more appealing to new generations of riders and a few old ones. ?I only hope Ms. Kurtz, who will turn 86 in a few days, has come back to see what has changed.

?#THISisITS #MaaS #connectedvehicle #VLBS #motorcoach #transportation #masstranst #OEMs #airline #OTRB