Hello UO, Its been a while.

 

Me and one of my former classmates have a business idea we'd like to get off the ground. First I will tell you about it and then we'd like to have you guys' input on how to advertise, who to talk to, how to reach a broader audience.

 

Here's the idea:

 

We would like to start an inter-city Bus line that caters only to college students. The buses would be your typical charter bus/motor coach buses that seat up to 56. The first line would go from OSU/Columbus to Cleveland and possibly Akron. The follow-up line would probably be from Bowling Green State University to Cleveland.

 

Key features of the line:

 

Picks students up DIRECTLY from campus, so no travel or cab fare needed to get to Greyhound

 

Only for College students, so no worries about whose on the bus for you (even though you don't know who goes to school with you  :-D )

 

Cheaper than greyhound.

 

What are your ideas, suggestions, comments?

 

Does anybody know where we can find stats on the number of college students in a certain city from another, or just any stats that could be useful?

 

Thanks UO!

Something like Megabus? In the sense that Megabus is new (2006), is express only, and tries to undercut Greyhound.

 

http://www.megabus.com/us/stops/index_midwest.php

Yeah, except open only to College students. And it would have a set price that is lower than GH, and not a price that gets more expensive the closer it gets to departure time.

I think that's how Megabus makes their money though....relying on the last minute decisions makers to cover the bulk of the cost.  I've ridden Megabus a few times and have rarely been able to secure that $1 Chicago to Detroit deal. 

 

I guess the bigger question to ask you is what are the reasons you forsee students traveling between these cities? 

 

I know there use to be a TON of people who needed rides from University of Dayton to Cleveland either for students to get back home or go to someevent. I even remember a lot of the Chinese students that were here only for a semester or a year that wanted to go to Cleveland simply to catch a basketball game to see LeBron and they really didn't know much about the US in general so a direct bus would have probably helped there too.

 

 

 

 

Megabus stops at Ohio State and Downtown Columbus. When they picked me up on Neil Dr., I was the only one at the stop. They pick the majority of people up downtown.

It sounds like it would be mostly effective on weekends and holidays.  What will you do with the busses the rest of the time?

I wish we could privatize local bus routes.

You can certainly market a service to a particular demographic group but you cannot legally exclude any member of the public from riding. So if you market the bus service via Twitter or Facebook, or by posting brochures around campuses, and then take payment only over the Internet (as Megabus does) you will likely capture college students as your primary ridership.

 

I wish we could privatize local bus routes.

 

Why not? They've done so in Europe. In many cities the transit agency is responsible only for planning, administration, infrastructure, facilities, equipment and funding. They contract out the bus or rail operations to private companies who then receive a subsidy based on their contract bid.

What about partnering with a charter bus service in the area?  Lakefront Lines comes to mind.  You could you work out contract with them to provide this service on certain days for a set price and then you can manage the pricing and booking of the bus however you like.  This is probably less risky than going out and trying to run your own busses.

Without costly advertising, it would be tough to make the program well known enough such that it would work IMO.  You'd have to heavily roll it out to all the schools that would be able to use it, set up facebook pages and stuff, it could seriously be someone's FT job just to monitor the social media pages, another person's job to handle reservations, another person's job to handle bookings and contracts for the buses, etc.  Not that it can't be done, but getting the buses is not the only major obstacle - you'd have to advertise it heavily to get it off the ground which could be pretty costly.

 

 

Wouldn't the 3C train take most of this business?

Actually my partner in this has an uncle who owns a charter bus company and has agreed to let us use them to start up. Rockandroller, agreed advertising and getting the word out will probably be our biggest obstacle and we're trying to find as many ways as possible to roll out some sort of advertising campaign.

 

We will only be doing these routes on weekends and Holidays. During the week we may do something like supply a bus for the trip if enough people demand it.

 

Thanks KJP for that info. Anymore info you may have on bus transportation?

 

To tedolph, the 3C line could take business away, and we're looking into trying to figure out where to go for all of the demographic data on the travel within Ohio. Also, just like this idea, the 3C line has to get up and running first! :-D

 

 

 

Have you thought about insurance costs?

Hey...might be a great idea.. Not to sway this, but one thing popped into mind about buses... What ever happened to the Cleveland Double Decker Buses that you'd see in recent years?

Have you thought about insurance costs?

 

We're using equipment owned and operated by the Charter we're using, so we're covered.

 

  If you already have vehicles and drivers, then you are already a step ahead. If you were starting from scratch, I would advise to think twice.

 

  My recommendations:

 

  Advertise in the student newspapers in your target market well ahead of time; set an opening date; and give away free rides for some time until the business gets established. As your ridership grows, your paid riders will displace your free riders. Try to get a full bus the first few times.

 

    Have enough money to keep it going at least a year before you turn a profit. Keep careful records to see how you are doing. If it doesn't look promising after a year, then quit.

 

    The University of Cincinnati and Queen City Metro partnered with an experimental service in the 1990's. Three new bus routes between suburban malls and both campuses ran 3 times in the morning and 3 more in the afternoon. After 3 years they decided that it wasn't attracting enough riders and discontinued.

Actually your marketing may not be all that difficult with the help of social networking services.  They largely do the work for you.

Hey...might be a great idea.. Not to sway this, but one thing popped into mind about buses... What ever happened to the Cleveland Double Decker Buses that you'd see in recent years?

 

Megabus still runs double deckers on the Cleveland-Chicago route.  You'd see those near Tower City on Huron a few times a day.

What about partnering with a charter bus service in the area? Lakefront Lines comes to mind.

 

Lakefront runs regular route buses between Cincinnati (Fairfield), Columbus, Cleveland and Buffalo (Routes #10/11), plus Chicago-Akron (Routes #40/41) and Cleveland-Athens (Routes #20/21) that travel via Columbus. See:

http://route.lakefrontlines.com/

 

Actually your marketing may not be all that difficult with the help of social networking services. They largely do the work for you.

 

I agree with that!

 

 

 

Thanks KJP for that info. Anymore info you may have on bus transportation?

 

 

Yes. Learn as much as possible from others, then copy them and take the next step. Read, ride, and research! Pay particular attention to the things they do to keep costs down, to maximize revenue and to market to their target group(s).

When passenger rail service begins to ramp up, think about how your proposed service can link colleges into that system.