I remember reading that Greyhound had a pretty sizable dropoff in ridership after a passenger was decapitated and cannibalized on one of their buses. Googling finds this: https://globalnews.ca/news/4331224/greyhound-bus-beheading-r...
Li was charged with second-degree murder, but was found not criminally responsible for his actions. Li is a schizophrenic, but had not been taking his medication.
He has since received a full discharge from the mental hospital in Selkirk, Man., where he was being held
Hmm
A legit company has to expend money on maintenance, etc, while the quasi-legal busses are fairly unsafe and fuel all sorts of illegal and quasi-legal activity.
Then again, I have no idea how well they maintain their buses.
'Cause that could be quite the difference - Greyhound bus on the side of the road, because the brakes are shot.
No-name bus merrily running down the road, the brakes are shot.
In these rural parts of Canada, it's not that the average person is traveling less, it's more that there are fewer people there and more of those who remain have their own transportation.
pure anecdotal but I tried greyhound awhile back. I wanted to go pick up a motorcycle in another state and figured, why not go by bus.
first rule I found out is, never go through a hub and never on a route you have to switch buses. in one of their largest hubs they overbooked and they did this regularly. which meant we had to wait for another bus to arrive. well not knowing the game I missed that one and had to wait for the third and then fourth. except the fourth was not but half full so they would not send it till the next scheduled morning run. seriously, they trapped half of us at the station because they unloaded us which means fight your way to the front.
talking to some long term bus riders and it was evident this is how the company operates. after loss of their only real competition they had no reason to change because more of their customers are too poor to have alternatives or complain.
I ended up doing a one way rental which oddly was less in cost than a bus drive and this included paying my gas and rental costs.
It might be doable between a few close urban cities like Megabus did, but buses in general aren't going to be a big opportunity for making money simply because too many of the the customers don't have money.