Greyhound Canada Tackles Overbooking and starts Yield Management

Greyhound Canada updated their website on August 19th, 2014, introducing yield management and eliminating overbooking on all inflexible schedules. This does mean that passenger who miss their bus or wish to travel on a later bus must now rebook their tickets. If the bus was missed due to a late connection, you will be rebooked for no additional charge.

I'm not able to see exactly how popular the Vancouver-Calgary is, having heard many stories about overbooking on that scenic route. Eastbound, tonight's overnight 5004 is SOLD OUT, as is tomorrow morning's 5000. Westbound, tonight's overnight 5159 has 5 seats left and tomorrow afternoon's 5155 is SOLD OUT.

On Kamloops-Calgary, a short-turn of the Vancouver-Calgary, tonight's 5002 has 2 seats left.

Yeah, seems popular to me, and those walk-up passengers won't even be able to buy tickets.

Especially popular is the Vancouver-Kamloops which will probably require more runs and extra sections to allow more through passengers to Calgary. The daytime runs are pretty much all topped out in advance since Vancouver-Calgary is known to be the most scenic Greyhound route and the original CP Canadian's route.

These are not "Greyhound Express" runs, they are just regular Long-Distance Service, but I hope GLC will turn the overnight runs into Limiteds soon to allow better sleeping.

Sources:

https://www.greyhound.ca/default.aspx.

http://extranet.greyhound.com/revsup/csked/pageset.html.

The term you're looking for is "fixed routes", not inflexible.

Back to the topic… we discussed this when Greyhound US did the same thing. They haven't eliminated overbooking per se, they just have a better handle on how many passengers are on each bus. That means that while Greyhound doesn't intentionally overbook, but until they better integrate other connecting carriers into their booking system, overbooking is still possible.

Not fixed routes though, Greyhound's Lucky Streak Casino service is a fixed route but sells flexible tickets so overbooking is bound to happen. But Lucky Streak does not operate in Canada.

Also, connecting carriers are not Greyhound so that's not completely Greyhound's problem, they need to be proactive themselves. But Greyhound Canada is Greyhound Canada, not Orleans Express, not Brewster, not Pacific Coach.

I listed Vancouver-Calgary as an example. Give me a situation in which Greyhound would overbook Vancouver-Calgary.

My point is that as long as Greyhound Canada allows other carriers (Orleans Express, Brewster, Pacific Coach, etc.) to sell tickets to their customers on Greyhound Canada routes, without forcing them to interface with their booking system, overbooking can still happen.

And it's a two-way street... so long as Greyhound Canada is booking codeshares on other carriers without interfacing with that carriers booking system those buses can be oversold.

Same thing here in the states. As far as I know Greyhound's and Amtrak's booking systems don't interface. If that's true, that means when Amtrak books a passengers on a Greyhound bus from say Raton, NM to Colorado Springs, CO... that bus could end up overbooked.

But none of those other carriers appear to sell Greyhound Canada tickets. Greyhound Canada sells their tickets, but the opposite apparently doesn't happen. And VIA Rail does not have Thruway service.

I'd really like to see an example of why, after the new booking system introduced on August 19th, 2014, a scheduled GLC coach would continue to overflow with pax, commuter runs excepted. GLC has a government-granted monopoly on many routes in exchange for operating unprofitable remote routes. Good example would be Dawson Creek-Whitehorse, it obviously loses money in the winter and earns money in the summer, as with many GLC routes.

John –

Unlike you I do not know the workings of Greyhound Canada, I am just in the last few months starting to understand the workings of Greyhound here in the US. I am therefore unable to provide information on the potential for overbooking.

If indeed there are no opportunities for buses to be overbooked, that is great. But I would think that Greyhound's PR folks would happily issue a formal press release heralding that fact.

I sort of assume at this point that Greyhound is working on a way to totally eliminate overbooking. I think the connecting carriers is the only thing standing in the way of that. But honestly I wonder how many people are booking tickets through another company. It's got to be a small amount.

Here in the US, it seems that Amtrak is really the only major source of that type of business.

They won't issue a formal press release in Canada either. First of all, commuter routes will continue to have flexible tickets, and thus will continue to be overbooked. You said "fixed" routes, but that is an example of a fixed route with flexible tickets. Second of all, passengers may misinterpret the announcement to include Greyhound US, leading to possible litigation. After all, there's already 200,000 public Greyhound Haters on the Internet.

I witnessed an Amtrak-Greyhound problem while riding Greyhound 1302 la Vegas-Denver which connects to Amtrak 5 the eastbound CZ. That bus was already sold out by Greyhound and packed to capacity, but two additional Amtrak passengers walked on insisting they had to get to Denver to catch the CZ. The Greyhound driver reluctantly let them on, breaking DOT laws, and they were forced to stand in the aisle, an illegal action in the absence of grab holds. Blame Greyhound or blame Amtrak? I think both are to blame. But how is someone going to integrate Trips and ARROW?

If I was that Amtrak passenger, with a ticket in hand and I was denied boarding due to overbooking, I too would be rightly pissed off at both Amtrak and Greyhound.

Here's my thought on how to prevent overbooking on the cheap. Since Greyhound requires that all Amtrak passengers have a paper ticket for travel (no etickets accepted) that means online/phone ticket sales must stop 4 days in advance (after that the tickets won't be mailed in time). So I say on thruway routes Greyhound should hold a certain amount of tickets (based on historic sales) until 4 days prior to travel. After that the unsold tickets are released. If there is someone who wants to buy a ticket last minute and pick them from a staffed station, have the ticket agent call into Greyhound and check availability.

The same process could be used for other carriers that book tickets on Greyhound.

It's low-tech but it solves the overbooking problem.

Great idea! E-mail Greyhound and see what they think. Really about time Greyhound dealt with avoidable-but-unpredictable problems.

I took a short trip on Concord Coach Lines Mid-Coast Maine Coastal route (to Rockland for the Maine Easter Railway to the Downeaster) at the beginning of this month. Concord Coach Lines is a no-reserved seats, tickets valid on any departure operator. Apparently (this was the first time I knew about this) according to a sign in the window of the Rockland Station they used to have an interline agreement with Greyhound to New York that ended at some point in 2012 and 2013 because of Greyhound's decision to move to a reservation based ticketing system. I got the feeling that Concord kept selling tickets for a bit after Greyhound made the switch and their customers were complaining about not being able to get seats. This meant the Rockland Agency (using old school carbon copied paper taking imprints of special cards to avoid the expense of installing separate Concord Coach Line ticketing terminals) could sell continuing tickets from Boston to New York.

That explains some of Greyhound's booking troubles. Apparently many interline customers are now only allowed to sell their own tickets, not Greyhound tickets, while Greyhound is allowed to sell their tickets. But various Thruway partnerships with Amtrak have caused trouble because it is the other way around.

Further pressure comes from increasing sell-outs across the Greyhound system due to fleet shortages and increasing demand. For example, even Reno-Salt Lake City is getting sold out by walk-up and some routes are being sold out online before walk-up, thus kicking out anything that tries to "buy and go". Notable examples are the Vancouver-Calgary along with Sacramento-Portland.

That Concord you rode is a X3-45 known as Obama's bus made in Canada.

There comfortable buses, also road one from Hanover to Boston this month on Dartmouth Coach Lines (a subsidiary of Concord Coach Lines LLC).

I just checked and sure enough I can buy a ticket from New York to Rockland through Greyhound, if you try Portland, or Bangor, the core Concord Coach from New York on Greyhound's website you can't book tickets to these stops (although Portland is on the Rockland schedule as Portland TNS)

If you were going to Portland or Bangor, Greyhound goes to those places from Boston also using ObamaBuses aka X3-45.

Note on Vancouver-Calgary, that is one of the only Greyhound routes when daytime runs get more passengers than overnight runs.

Why the devil is a Provosts line haul coach called an Obamabus? If he takes a dump on an American Standard toilet does it become an ObamaFlush?

Provosts? Yeah, we're making fun of him for buying a Canadian product.

Swadian Hardcore said:

Provosts? Yeah, we're making fun of him for buying a Canadian product.

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Unfair to blame him....it was the Secret Service and the GSA that determined the best source for that vehicle....

railiner said:

Swadian Hardcore said:

Provosts? Yeah, we're making fun of him for buying a Canadian product.

Click to expand...

Unfair to blame him....it was the Secret Service and the GSA that determined the best source for that vehicle....

Click to expand...

They also determined that MCI's buses were incapable of handling all the security modifications.
Plus, I don't see that as much of an insult. It's an honor to have the president pick your product. The purchase puts Prevost on an elite list with Cadillac and Boeing.

Swadian Hardcore said:

Provosts? Yeah, we're making fun of him for buying a Canadian product.

Click to expand...

Last time I checked Provost is owned by Volvo Trucks and is therefore Swedish.

It's still made in Canada and designed by Canadians.

It is not designed by Canadians. It's a pity they are built by them. They are almost as lazy and nearly as slipshod as Americans.

So, you are not American, GML? Was, du bist Deutsch?

Nein. Das isht Israeli und Amerikan.

No wonder you like your Uzi. Did you ever do NS?

Meanwhile, a wave of sellouts hit the Vancouver-Calgary again. Tomorrow there are three eastbound and two westbound sellouts. Even more, tomorrow's daytime eastbound 5000 has one seat left.

Wow, GLC really need this new system. And I bet they need more coaches too.