"Germany's" FlixBus is largely owned by American private equity firms.<p>Good ol' all-American Greyhound is owned by one of the biggest UK public transport companies, FirstGroup. (Megabus is owned by another, Stagecoach.)<p>Meanwhile, over in the UK, Stagecoach and First duke it out for rail franchises with the nationalised rail companies of Europe.
I ride with FlixBus several times a year within Germany to visit family. It gets you where you're going, on time, clean buses. There seems to be a lot of competition for buses in Germany, at least in Berlin, so maybe that pushes quality up. I wish them luck.
So America's "Uber for long-distance buses" will come from Germany instead of Silicon Valley? I must say I'm a bit surprised.<p>(Granted, the "Uber for..." comparison is not spot on here. FlixBus provides the infrastructure in form of bus terminals and information booths. But tickets are bought online or in their smartphone app, with surge pricing etc, and FlixBus contracts local bus companies for actually driving the buses)
I don't know how Greyhound is still relevant. Most of the time you can get comparable if not cheaper tickets on Amtrak, and it's an order of magnitude better experience than a greyhound bus. I just did a sample from Chicago to SF, and it's 20 dollars cheaper on amtrak, and 1 hour faster. That's leaving on Monday.<p>I suppose there may be some rural routes where it's a good option, but I don't see it.
I'm sure they'll have fun realizing the target market of bus travel in America isn't what it is in Germany, and that they are trying to be a department store in a dollar store world.
Last time I took the Megabus, the bus drivers were complaining that the company had sold the Midwest division (or something like that) to Coach USA. Indeed, the last few times I took it from Chicago to Ohio, they were Coach USA buses instead of the usual blue double-decker Megabuses. Apparently they downsized majorly in the region [1].<p>It didn't strike me as a particularly profitable venture in this country.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-megabus-downsizing-chicago-1111-biz-20161110-story.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-megabus-downsizing...</a>
I have noticed the uptick in quality of services owned by foreign companies over services owned by US companies.<p>Maybe foreign companies are not under pressure to achieve constant growth at all costs and that allows them to focus on quality metrics instead of quantity metrics.
I love greyhound, I have taken it coast to coast dozens of times since the late 90's, I will be doing it again soon, I would love to see some competition.
Buses in US suck. I can buy a first class train ticket in China for the price of a SF-LA bus ride, and it will pass the equivalent distance in less time than you need to reach downtown SF from the airport.<p>Thus, Chinese trains are superior to American buses.