The bus carrier has struggled for years with declining ridership, increasing competition and deregulation. But the complete loss of so-called farebox revenue during the pandemic has forced the company to permanently cease operations, said Greyhound Canada senior vice-president Stuart Kendrick. This will have a massive impact. The decision is a blow to rural and remote areas that rely on a patchwork of private intercity bus companies for transportation.
The service has long been part of a network linking smaller communities and big cities, offering an affordable and convenient mode of travel for everyone from essential workers and students to the elderly and backpackers. Yet the rise in car ownership, ride sharing, discount airlines and urban migration has slowly eroded bus ridership, leading Greyhound Canada to gradually reduce the frequency of some services and cut other routes altogether.
We either cut the frequency, exit the rural markets or look for some help. Citing declining ridership, deregulation and subsidized competition, Greyhound Canada suspended all operations in Western Canada in Yet despite the ongoing challenges with its remaining routes, nothing could have prepared the company for the dramatic 95 per cent drop in passengers at the outset of the pandemic, Kendrick said.
Multiple coach bus companies teamed up and approached the federal and provincial governments for financial aid amid mounting COVID restrictions. Intercity bus carriers are also competing with publicly funded train and transit systems, he said, putting private companies at a disadvantage. The Ontario government has also promised to deregulate the intercommunity bus industry starting in July, a move that would end Greyhound Canada's control of certain routes.
About employees were laid off after Greyhound Canada temporarily ended its passenger service last May. An additional 45 employees will be laid off as a result of the permanent closure, Kendrick said. The Amalgamated Transit Union lamented the impact of the shutdown on workers and said it will leave thousands of people without transportation options. Greyhound plans to sell the bus stations it owns, Kendrick said.
The company said tickets for travel after Thursday will be refunded. Customers with a valid travel voucher can also request a refund. All Ontario and Quebec routes that were temporarily suspended in May will permanently end as of midnight on Thursday.
Unfortunately, this practical strength is also a business weakness. A daily roundtrip from Newport News to Norfolk is significantly less profitable than hourly trips to and from a major hub such as New York City. Lacking extensive regulation and government subsidy, Greyhound executives are forced to focus their investments on the most profitable schedules while ditching small-town and rural communities.
Yet this is another bind: while coastal schedules have the highest ridership they also face the stiffest competition from budget and Chinatown bus lines such as Megabus and from Amtrak and regional rail. The profit squeeze is tight and it will only get tighter. So the only way to save the intercity bus system as it exists is to greatly increase ridership to and from low-priority destinations while staying competitive on the highly profitable coastal corridors.
In order to do both, you need to greatly reduce the price of fares — which have increased in recent years and are more expensive than comparable service in other countries. Greyhound is in trouble, which means the feds can buy the company for cheap. Once purchased, the government could temporarily ignore the profit problem and focus on rescuing the fleet — providing affordable travel as a public good.
Just as the US post office does not use a dime of taxpayer money, the federally owned Greyhound bus system could pay for its own operating cost through fares; without the burden of costly executives and grubby shareholders, the organization would likely save a great deal of money in overhead.
The benefits of an old-fashioned nationalization scheme like this are enormous. The company says anyone with a ticket booked can get a refund up until the end of June. He says governments need to step up to fill the gap to ensure that bus-based transportation networks can exist, either by subsidizing them like urban bus systems or by helping to develop a hybrid model such as a co-operative, which many other countries have seen success with.
While Greyhound bus service between Canadian destinations will end, Greyhound's U. They are:. In Windsor, Ont. Federal Transport Minister Omar Alghabra says the federal government was also disappointed to hear of the company's decision, because so many communities depend on bus service to connect them to the rest of the country. The Amalgamated Transit Union ATU , which represents workers at the bus line, says about jobs will be lost, of which were unionized positions, and governments must bear some of the blame.
The federal NDP also laid blame on the government. Conservative Shadow Minister for Rural Development Dane Lloyd said it is telling that the company is choosing to stay in business in the U. Perl agrees there are major equity issues at play because the communities and groups most likely to depend on a service like Greyhound are those who were already disadvantaged.
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