Not really, we always used the city busses. I know that business exists, but I don’t know any private bus business that’d be affected by this ticket (except, as mentioned, FlixBus)
An hour's bus ride (assuming you catch the schedule right) each way is pretty ruinous for someone working long hours or with kids to look after. I think it hardly counts as "local".
Depending on destination, you might need to change buses several times, which is of course inconvenient.
OTOH, booking a busride far in advance might mitigate this. Also different price-levels could mitigate this to some extent. I'm not sure if it would be sufficient, though.
Did you really never go somewhere on a rented bus when you were in school? You can rent a bus with driver eg. for the company picnic or other touristic activities.
However, I fail to see how that business, which usually involves a time constraint and direct point-to-point travels, would be impacted by this kind of ticket.
Those are generally larger buses that are completely fixed in their route and stops, right?
Smaller buses able to optimise routes to make fewer stops will help. Split the current big bus into 3-4 smaller ones and the people going close to the full distance might not stop for the first 80% of stops. That would cut out a lot of time.
Obviously rural areas will be the last to see these changes for non-commercial traffic.
Private long distance bus operators are complaining, indeed. They were looking forward to this summer to finally make some revenue after two years of reduced demand due to the pandemic, and then this measure torpedoes their business.
100%. Our local bus system can't hire operators because they're priced out of the area for housing, so all operators have to come from a 4 hour Metrolink ride away.
I can relate to this. One has to wonder how much of this is inherent to buses as a transportation mode vs the fact that it's normally the cheap option.
reply