Greyhound abandons bus passengers...story

bevans6 · January 04, 2011, 12:09:26 PM

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ontario/greyhound-passengers-consider-lawsuit-for-after-being-abandoned-for-14-hours/article1857390/

gumpy · January 04, 2011, 05:28:51 PM

Humorous. I expect in the winter that the driver had left the bus running to keep the cattle, err people from freezing.

If it's true that other cars, buses and trucks had been leaving for hours, I'd have to say there would be one stranded driver with no ride if I had been on that bus.

bevans6 · January 04, 2011, 06:06:11 PM

The passengers eventually figured out how to open the door, and start the engine to get heat. The driver was in a motel. I think this is going to cost someone a lot of money.

Brian

buswarrior · January 05, 2011, 03:45:45 PM

Some one needs their @$# fired.

The driver and whoever is in charge of him.

Won't be taken seriously at any level of that organization unless someone in management is offered up too.

What an embarrassment for the entire motor coach line run industry.

Folks don't differentiate companies, they're all "the bus".

happy coaching!
buswarrior

RJ · January 05, 2011, 07:58:31 PM

BW -

AMEN, brother, AMEN!!

artvonne · January 05, 2011, 08:08:51 PM

I thought Greyhound abandoned their passengers years ago. Not quite sure what the surprise is here.

bevans6 · January 06, 2011, 05:03:16 AM

I think that the two drivers (there were two buses in convoy, around 100 passengers) were out of daily in service time on their run, and were expecting relief drivers who were not there. I think that the rules for daily in-service require them to be out of the bus for their sleep time, and can't be in-service/not driving either, so they couldn't stay with the bus legally. Talk about stuck between a rock and a hard place, but if there was a wrong way to handle the passengers, they found it!

It didn't stop there. Some passengers got to a Greyhound terminal too late for a connection, and were kicked out of the terminal at 3 am because it was closing. Another could have gotten a ride on another route, but they wanted to charge him 3 times the original ticket because the new route was longer... Others were offered a $100 credit against their ticket price.

Brian

buswarrior · January 06, 2011, 06:23:33 AM

I hope someone back home in the UK at First Group hears about this.

happy coaching!
buswarrior

Busted Knuckle · January 06, 2011, 07:50:50 AM

Quote from: gumpy on January 04, 2011, 05:28:51 PM
Humorous. I expect in the winter that the driver had left the bus running to keep the cattle, err people from freezing.

If it's true that other cars, buses and trucks had been leaving for hours, I'd have to say there would be one stranded driver with no ride if I had been on that bus.

Quote from: buswarrior on January 05, 2011, 03:45:45 PM
Some one needs their @$# fired.

The driver and whoever is in charge of him.

Won't be taken seriously at any level of that organization unless someone in management is offered up too.

What an embarrassment for the entire motor coach line run industry.

Folks don't differentiate companies, they're all "the bus".

happy coaching!
buswarrior

BW yes very sad and true!

Quote from: RJ on January 05, 2011, 07:58:31 PM
BW -

AMEN, brother, AMEN!!

Another AMEN, brother, AMEN!!

Quote from: artvonne link=topic=18579.msg200419#msg200419

date=1294286931
I thought Greyhound abandoned their passengers years ago. Not quite sure what the surprise is here.

Another AMEN, brother, AMEN!!

Quote from: buswarrior on January 06, 2011, 06:23:33 AM
I hope someone back home in the UK at First Group hears about this.

happy coaching!
buswarrior

Yeah like it'll make a difference!

BK

lostagain · January 06, 2011, 08:16:29 AM

We had the Greyhound agency at our gas station for about 10 years. It was good at the beginning. It brought a lot of traffic through the store.

But as Greyhound deteriorated over the years, it became increasingly difficult to justify having them. The commission went from 10% to 8%. They never spent the money to get a tracking system for the Courier Express, the drivers were more and more grumpy because they weren't treated right. You wouldn't believe some of the battered old buses that would pull in at times.

When the revenue became less than what it cost us to operate that business, we abandoned them. That's about 4 or 5 years ago. Then it was about a year and a half until they found some other place that would have them.

We're better off without them now.

JC

artvonne · January 06, 2011, 10:19:38 AM

I read a book on the history of Greyhound back in the early 90's. It sounded like the same story over at Mercedes Benz, just a long run of more aquisitions, until the Company that started it all was so small in the grand scheme, it didnt matter anymore to anyone running the big show.

Greyhound bought up Armour foods and Dial, and then went on a buying binge, and the corparation in charge really sees no value in running Busses.

Mercedes Benz bought up MAN, Frieghtliner, Oshkosh, Detroit Diesel, among hundreds of others, and eventually Chrysler, and in the process lost track of who they were, dropping Mercedes from their name and replacing it with Chrysler. I liked cars from both Companies, but between the two, Mercedes was very historic. Taking His name down off the Company Heading, soley to rip off Chrysler

In both cases they forgot to take care of their own, and I wont shed a tear is either Company die off and are never seen again. Trailways still has nice equipment by the looks of it.

belfert · January 06, 2011, 10:41:24 AM

I don't think many line haul operators take very good care of their buses. I saw a Greyhound 102DL3 on my trip home from Arcadia that looked like it had a dent or scrape on every panel on the entire bus. I saw a Jefferson Lines year old MCI at a bus garage that had a broken bumper amongst other issues.

They need to do better driver training or something. No reason to have the buses look like bumper cars.

artvonne · January 06, 2011, 11:22:22 AM

Quote from: belfert on January 06, 2011, 10:41:24 AM
They need to do better driver training or something. No reason to have the buses look like bumper cars.

With just a little bit of customer service, a Bus company could really do well right now, and they could do it without raising rates. There is plenty of money to be made if they just would pull their head out of their @$$.

They could start with the stations so people feel safe and cared for, then put some real men behind the wheels that you can trust. With all the garbage with the airlines and the TSA, and Amtrack charging as much as airlines but with even worse service than a Bus, its time.