Can buses replace domestic flights? 

I found you for trains ironically, but videos like these are so so cool!

Yeah, not sure why either but I'm guessing in the US/Canada it's a combination of 1) generally bad image of bus travel and 2) lack of amazing financial upside i.e. you won't get the returns needed to attract much traditional capital or VC money - the recent growth of the Jet/Napaway might indicate a change in this tho, so that would be cool :)

I remember looking into one of the services he mentioned in the video and it was a simple no for me: Cost. The pickup/drop-off area was difficult to get to by public transit and it was outdoors so you couldn't easily show up early and chill. And it was comparable to the cost of flying or taking a train. As fun as it sounded, it just came off as a logistical nightmare if you didn't have the money for all the ancillary costs -- and if you had the money, just fly.

I'd say at least for Europe its because of safety regulation. Lie flat bus seats and conventional sleeper buses were illegalised after several major accidents involving them and risking passenger safety with their design caused law changes in 2005. So now if you see an overnight bus trip, its just gonna be a regular old bus seat, or at best a business class seat, not with full recline, but a decent amount like on the VY Bus4You high end buses in Scandinavia.

1. Thank you! 2. If Amtrak and Greyhound were the same company, buses could feed train station hubs. 3. Someday, airships ( zeppelins ) will be flying hotels. 🐢

Thank you! Glad you liked it - I'll be making more :)

Yep, I'd like to see us take advantage of that in the US/Canada, especially since good rail infrastructure will take a looong time to come

Yup

@@TheFlyingMooseCAwe only have planes and buses lol outside NEC and Brightline Florida we have no proper intercity trains

Yeah, Amtrak is a joke for reliable intercity passenger train services.

Yeah. In Denmark where I'm from despite being a small country, we have 3 major intercity bus companies, all of which cater to the budget segment but in different ways. First is Flixbus, the multinational conglomorate with the rock bottom prices. We all know them, they're the McDonalds of intercity travel. But then we get to "Kombardo Expressen". This bus service is run by a Ferry company called Molslinjen (and named after an ad campaign of theirs). Basically what this means is that in Denmark, the geography of large islands, peninsulas, and physical links is shaped like a big L. But Kombardo Expressen have exclusive access (at least for buses) to Molslinjens ferry service which works as a major shortcut across the country, cutting down journey times. Additionally passengers can buy food onboard the ferry which adds a competitive factor against the Danish state railways who have no catering. And more recently, Kombardo Expressen have started using their ferries as floating bus terminals, serving various destinations on both sides of the ferry link and allowing passengers to transfer on the ferry, while the crew moves your luggage from one bus to another. Basically a hub and spoke model where the hub is a moving ferry. Kombardo is the most expensive of the 3 companies though but usually a fair bit cheaper than the railways still. And then there's "Fleet" The newest service on the block, launching just a year ago by the company Vikingbus. Vikingbus is the largest singular bus company in the country with over 800 buses used on everything from long distance charter trips, to school services, rail replacement buses, tourist shuttles, and more! Their business model is using this large fleet to keep their prices low. The start price is between Flixbus and Kombardo, but if departures sell out and are in high demand, they don't hike the prices up, but rather just put more buses onto the same departure and keep selling tickets at low prices. They've become the cheapest last minute option for travelling across Denmark by far thanks to this business strategy that means tickets basically never sell out.

Wow what a great story - glad it all worked out and thanks for sharing!

Thanks a lot :^)

I thought the same thing.

Fair enough! Looks like a potential opportunity for someone in those parts of the country 👀

Really appreciate it - hope to see you around!

Thanks for watching! Love the kwik trip haha - glad to hear you’ve also had good experiences on Flix :)

@@TheFlyingMooseCA There's definitely a case to make for an 8 and a half hour daytime bus route. Midwestern travellers are used to longer distances and more frugal spenders. Those buses were both packed, especially when we pulled into Madison WI (almost like there should be a train line to that city). When it comes to needing to buy a travel option short notice, the bus has saved me twice with cheaper tickets than Amtrak and the airlines, with the advantage of downtown to downtown connections just like a train.

fair enough - that's another physical aspect that has to be considered

The country needs an overhaul and a leader who takes sovereignty seriously.

I feel like if airlines can figure out how to get passengers directly airside from a bus, that’d be huge for to be able to offload pressure to smaller airports 🤷

@@TheFlyingMooseCA Bypassing bus-destination security would be a game changer but I don't see how they could do it - how could you guarantee a bus stays sterile from airport-to-airport?

Lufthansa has a partnership with Deutsche Bahn. You can get combined train+plane tickets and in Frankfurt passenegrs with such tickets have express check in (and luggage retrieval) right in the high speed rail station that is connected to the Airport. There is no security check for trains and no checked luggage so that needs to be done at the airport but this way you only need to walk the length of the platform with your luggage at most. It's actually a thing in multiple european countries that you book a flight but it's acyually a train sometimes. It's always been clearly labeled for me though.

thanks Jonny 😍 biggest fan

Haha yeah, the sweet spot I reckon is replacing those 1 hour flights that really are just a hassle. I just have a multimodal dream 💭

Thanks for sharing - definitely agree that rail > bus in terms of the passenger experience (even if a little pricier). Unfortunately in NA we just don't have those rail options and it doesn't seem like there's a strong will to build them, hence buses might be the best bandaid solution :/

haha thanks, hope it was a pleasant surprise >:)

Onion News Network - excellent :)

Definitely - although there’ll hopefully be Brightline West soon for that specific city pair, which would be a huge step up 😎

Yep, I think there’s a lot of potential to capture that low hanging fruit

😂 nah take the train

😂 ideally yes

Agreed 😎 buses would only be the cheap stopgap :/

Yep or a train, the multimodal dream 😎

Yep, HSR is the ideal in many cases but buses probably have a key role in the transition - proving that people will shift from cars. I can imagine a situation where buses are almost used as proof of concepts to more easily justify the investment for rail

Fair enough - roads are markedly more dangerous than flying

@@TheFlyingMooseCA But buses are far safer than private cars. More professional drivers, and simply higher mass. And a lot of air safety per km comes from long flights where nothing much happens; take-off and landing are the riskiest segments, as well as the dirtiest. On a *per journey* basis, air isn't so overwhelmingly safe, which will matter for someone taking lots of short flights.

"15 min drive from home to airport," That says you either live in a small town or have chosen to live near your airport. In big cities most people don't live in a 15 minute drive from the airport, even without traffic congestion. For a lot of people just getting to the airport would be longer, the check-in/security could be longer even with priority, getting *from* the airport would be at least as long. Conversely, downtown bus stops should be near an office, if not someone's home. Your 1-hour flight is efficient for you; that doesn't mean 1-hour flights are efficient in general.

@@mindstalk Plenty of airports are only 15 mins away from the city along the QC-Windsor Corridor: YQG, YXU, YTZ, YKF, YYZ (From Mississauga and Etobicoke), YOW, YUL (From Mount Royal). The video includes a focus on the QC-Windsor corridor, yet it is not faster at the 400-km distance and the video provides no example of an actual trip. E.g. Windsor city hall-Toronto city hall by plane takes only 4-4.5 hours door-to-door on a direct flight on Aug 15 (Wed). However, Flixbus will take 6 hours on the 368km direct bus trip alone on the same morning, excluding time getting to and from origin and destination. You can find similar results for Ottawa city hall-Toronto city hall on the same day at 450km (he Ottawa-Toronto as an example of a trip where airplanes can be replaced in another video).

🥲🥲🥲 sorry to hear

@@TheFlyingMooseCA I was really sad because I love traveling by bus and train (I'm originally from Europe) and to see the US like that would be a dream

Definitely a long way to go for buses in NA, but hopefully some of these premium services can raise the standards :^)