Talk:Greyhound Lines
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[edit] Passenger volume
It would be useful to have some information on passenger volume included, relative to airline and rail travel. --Blainster 15:16, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
[edit] One psychological problem of riding the Greyhound
This was not my experience. Rode all night through. They don't need to empty the toilets that often.Mikereichold 05:21, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
Agree with the comment above. Actually, much of the "Greyhound in the 21st Century" section, particularly the part about checked bags and smoking, strikes me as opinions about Greyhound's service, not so much information. Having taken more than my fair share of Greyhound rides (many unwillingly), I know it's no picnic, but it's still important to maintain a neutral tone. :-) Also, I would remove the bridge collapse in the "accidents" section--Greyhound was not at fault, and it's only tangientally related (at best) to the topic. Professor Harold Hill 05:56, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Relation to Railroad Passenger Services
Note that Greyhound provided an opportunity for the railroads to abandon marginal passenger operations sooner than they might have been able to otherwise. Someone needs to include that element in the main article along with more discussion of the changing demographic and land use trends that drove traffic primarily from the 1930's to the 1980's.
[edit] "Types of Demographics"
The sentence, "In addition, the types of demographics of riders have gradually shifted downward" should be rephrased or removed. It's true that there are fewer and fewer affluent Greyhound users, but this issue should be handled with more sensitivity. "Types of demographics" is a euphemism that I frankly have never heard. Perhaps a source can be brought in to show how competition from other forms of transportation (like private cars and planes) has created a tiered transit system.
[edit] Any information on bus maintaince?
I have taken Greyhound on more than one occasion and the bus broke down each time. Other passengers reported they were on other buses that broke down on enroute. Once the replacement bus arrived at it's destination, (late of course), the policy of Greyhound towards travelers who had to make connecting buses was they would have to wait for the next bus, no matter how long that wait was. Also, if bad weather delayed a bus from arriving on time, the connecting bus would not wait for the delayed passengers, nor would Greyhound send out another bus. Also, the passenger has the responsibility of putting their luggage on the bus, and taking it off, and transferring it if they are changing buses. Greyhound will issue luggage tickets to go on the baggage, but, the passenger has to make sure it gets on and off the bus. It is not like checking luggage on to a train or plane, where the carrier has the responsibilty for the luggage, once the passenger gets their seating ticket and their luggage tickets. All the luggage tickets do is show that a person had a certain number of pieces of luggage stored under the bus.204.80.61.10 15:59, 4 December 2006 (UTC)Bennett Turk
- Stuff like this cries out for a separate criticism section, which Greyhound certainly deserves; riding the Greyhound isn't for amateurs, and there's certainly an art to minimizing the issues that you can control and being patient through the ones you can't (although expressing this without fear of turning Wikipedia into some kind of travelogue or handbook to Greyhound travel would be tricky). About the only good piece of official Greyhound advice is "show up an hour early" (although on some routes during seasonal travel, two hours is a better bet). There are so many caveats to riding Greyhound that you just have to learn with experience, and first-time travelers can get doubly frustrated. Jogging down to the airport for a lovely flight it's not, and you find people every day who expect that and are incensed when it's more analogous to riding the subway. The problem here is that there just aren't enough formal references about the trials and tribulations of Greyhound travel. You hear about the odd accident or two, but that's about it. I'm sure half of us could write a whole OR-sourced article that was pretty darned conclusive, but that doesn't help anyone. The Greyhound experience also seems to be significantly different from region to region, and is like an entirely different service once you get on a bus operated by Greyhound Canada.
- As an aside, either I've been extremely lucky, or you've had an awful string of bad luck; I've never been in the middle of a breakdown, although I've certainly had my share of delayed routes as a result waiting for a broken-down connecting bus. The longest I've ever had to wait is five hours in Atlanta (arguably one of the worst terminals ever, especially when it's crowded) due to a combination of holiday crunch and weather-related air travel overflow. Gnu 08:19, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
