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May 13, 2008
$1 Megabus Rides to SF & Vegas May Cease
Photo by Steve Deger via Flickr
Thrifty bus service is not making the grade for Angelenos on the go to other cities via coach bus. "Maybe, truth be told, we were unable to get them out of their cars," Dale Moser, president of Megabus, told the LA Times about Californians not "warming up" to the service. "Quite frankly, the ridership hasn't been as robust as we'd like. We might just have to discontinue [the service]."
Ridership from Los Angeles on the 56-seat busses were sometimes three-quarters full, but often only carried 12 people with no increase in business in sight. In the Midwest, Megabus saw a 137% increase over the last year.
Earlier this year, the company, which is a subsidiary of Coach USA, stopped service to San Diego and Phoenix, but may stop all service from Los Angeles later this summer. The final decision will be made by Friday. Megabus began service in Los Angeles late last summer offering $1 deals to those who booked the first seats.
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I've never heard of them. Maybe their marketing department needs to, you know, do their job.
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I'm with you db...I'm in the transportation field in SoCal and I've NEVER heard of them. (However, if they need a local marketer, I'm available half-time for $30K! Just kidding.)
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If you have never heard of them, then you need to read LAist more often. That's how i originally found out about Megabus last summer, and THIS WEEKEND i am riding the megabus to San Francisco.
It was so much cheaper than flying and driving, i am so stoked on saving money for my trip. And if i was going to drive myself up there, it would take just as long as the bus ride anyways.
I am SO BUMMED that they are canceling the service.
I think they should count on summer travelers who want a cheap ride to vegas and SF.
god damn i am so bummed about this news.
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Thats a crying shame, ive taken the MB from SF to LA and found it to be a great (and welcome) alternative to driving up the 5.
I agreee, it seems their marketing blows but I can recommend the service. Beats the hell out of staring out the windshield at a flat dusty landscape for 6 odd hrs.
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Fair enough #3, but a random post on LAist last summer hardly qualifies a marketing campaign. Even if they had no marketing budget, you'd think they would have employed a YouTube/blogosphere-viral effort, at least. Kudos to you for using the service, but bah to Megabus for being megadumb. It's too bad, because I travel at least once a month to the Bay for work and I hate flying these days.
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I've never heard of it either. And like gonzoworm said, a post on LAist a year ago hardly counts as marketing. I've only been reading it since about September of last year, so I totally missed the posting.
Suck though, I would totally take it up to Vegas. Cheap bus ride there would leave me way more money for food, booze, strippers and cards. :D
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Megabus is not really a subsidiary of Coach USA, it is a British Company that contracts for buses and drivers through Coach USA. They have a bigger presence in Chicago than out here. I used to ride them out to Phoenix and back (even further than SF or Vegas) and was very impressed with the quality of service. One time, my girlfriend and I were the only ones on the bus! I basically got to ride in comfort identical to an airplane except that the hassle of security and traffic was replaced with a few extra hours on brand new bus.
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I will be sorry to see Megabus go if the decision is made to cancel the service. I agree that there has never been much publicity about it. I only knew about it because I read about them starting service here on LAist -- most people that I have mentioned it to had never heard of them.
I have taken the LA-SF bus twice in the last year and had an excellent ride both times. I was hoping to use them to go to Las Vegas on June 13th and had been wondering why I hadn't been able to book a ticket. Now I know why!
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they've done a terrible marketing campaign- I haven't seen one thing and neither has any of the 5-10 people I've told about it. the only reason I knew about it was from hearing about it in england! they literally need to spend $300 on facebook ads to college students at USC, UCLA, SMC, Riverside etc and I bet their ridership would go up pretty quickly.
I love megabus. please don't leave us.
~Mike
www.magicmikela.com
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Yeah I never heard of them either. I'd use them for the weekend trips up north or Vegas.
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I'm so bummed about this. I've taken it several times for my LA to Vegas trips every few months. Instead of spending $59 each way on Southwest, I can spend more on my hotel. I only found out about Megabus after passing one by on the 5 North. The company needs to promote at like college campuses or something- I think they'd actually get some full buses instead of the five to ten usual riders.
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$1 is a great deal if you can get it, otherwise the price isn't worthwhile a lot of the times. I saw the $1 promo a long time ago and actually almost planned a trip for the family if a ticket was gonna be that cheap, but actually finding a $1 ticket was impossible.
I'm going to san francisco next month and got round trip tickets on virgin america for $139. Megabus for the same trip at slightly more inconvenient times is $72.50. Round trip total flight time: just under 2 hrs, including hassle at airports, under 6. Megabus is 7-8 hours one way.
It's definitely cheaper than driving up there if not enough people are joining you in the car, but I'd pay more for the convenience of not spending that much time travelling.
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this is a mega bummer.
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I think Megabus failed for two reasons: 1)Little to no advertising and marketing, and 2)Ticketing only available online.
If bus travel cannot lure Angelenos out of their cars, Greyhound would have packed it in a long time ago. And The Dog doesn't lure riders with $1 fares. Southern California's ethnic bus carriers aren't hurting for riders, either.
Megabus relied entirely on press and little to no advertising outlay. For the commenter who suggested Megabus should have marketed to college students: The students were already taking the bus. They found out and are using the service. Megabus should have gone after a broader audience and attempted to poach Greyhound and Amtrak riders.
For instance, when the service started in 2006, I took a Megabus between L.A. and San Diego. The trip took 2 hours, even though the scheduled time was 2 1/2 hours. Unfortunately, this was when the San Diego stop was the Coach USA yard in City Heights, not near the Trolley downtown.
It was much faster and more pleasant than taking the Surfliner. The train was not bad, but it was on time, took 3 hours, and had to yield right of way to southbound Metrolink and Coaster trains.
Second, Megabus did itself in more by forcing everyone to buy a ticket online. For one thing, bus travel is made predominantly by low-income riders. By choice or by circumstance, they pay with cash. Megabus did not have on-site ticketing or standby boarding.
It's really a shame that Megabus failed in California. I have ridden it twice, to San Diego and to San Francisco, and have high praise for the service. Megabus would have changed the way people think about riding a bus. The buses were new and always immaculate, the seats were spacious and the trips were very fast. Seven hours to San Francisco was very good, and the bus was only five minutes behind schedule. That's impressive considering the long distance.
At the very least, we should just buy tickets and let Megabus go out on a swan song.