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Bus Competition
 Greyhound buses replacing Train 2 Vancouver – Toronto between Revelstoke and Calgary on account of a landslide, Banff, Canada May07, 1985 (WS) For many people the bus was the first means of transport to be experienced, at least during the decades before the ‘auto-based’ society developed. Being less comfortable than modern trains, most bus services have to concentrate on cheap fares. For bus travel, an initial cost of only 3 euro per 100km per person was estimated (by Eisenbahn-Revue, 2015). But high-speed trains are faster. Compared to air transport, buses have a remarkably low fuel consumption. Predecessor of the bus is the oldest continental means of public transport, the stage coach. Goethe has used it on his travels to Italy, passengers of the British Indian Mail route had to use it between Cairo and Suez and in innumerable Western movies it appeared.
North America More than half a century ago, Greyhound buses, fashionably designed by Raymond Loewy, could be admired in Hollywood movies. Bus traffic was facilitated in the USA by building the interstate highway network in the 1960s. In the USA as well as in Canada a bus line network was built up by a multitude of enterprises, covering the continent and it did not disappear with the airliner’s victory. Passengers can travel by bus even from Canada to Alaska, not possible by train. In New York the Grand Central railroad station, built by the Vanderbilts, has become a bus terminal, but in many cities around the globe a central bus terminal still is lacking.
Central and South America In Latin America, the privately-run bus lines were victorious over trains and also in the 21st century buses link the countries. International bus lines are existent in Central America, but every road traffic from there to South America has been blocked during decades by the Colombian drug guerrillas. Modern buses are interconnecting Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, Chile and older buses could have been seen on routes such as Buenos Aires - La Paz or on the Pacific coast. Cook’s timetable had listed for some time even a service Buenos Aires – Caracas, interrupted at the border of Venezuela. Around 2000, among the longest routes were Santiago de Chile – Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires – Lima. Bus lines were successful, nevertheless low-fare airlines developed, some ones started by bus enterprises. And the bus conquered Europe, too.
Europe In Germany before WWII, Mercedes-Benz had presented the design of a superfast streamlined 6-wheeler, intended for the new motorways. The culture of European bus development after WWII was an item of aviation historian and editor Walter Zuerl. At that time, regular international services developed in Europe, e.g. between Sweden and Rome by Linjebuss. Other companies connected Paris with Barcelona, while direct trains were missing. In partitioned Germany, the bus was granted Berlin traffic rights. In the 50s, railways started the “Europabus” network, extended even to Morocco and Baghdad. When in Italy, France, Germany and England railways were paralyzed by strikes, a bus traffic organizer expressed his thanks, for bus traffic in Germany expanded in 2014 in an unexpected way. Flixbus as an organizer has become the leader, founded in 2011 by J. Engert, D. Krauss and A. Schwaemmlein (so reported by Wirtschaftswoche). And in 2018 it even announced Flixtrain. Germany has liberalized bus traffic right in time, followed by France. And strikes against railways continued in Europe anywhere. Flixbus expanded to European countries and in 2018 Flixmobility started to organize a network in the USA, then envisaging even Brazil and Asia. In Europe, apart from the plane, the bus is the only means of public transport connecting directly e.g. the Baltics, Greece or Turkey. After the fall of the Iron Curtain, the first tourists from the East arrived aboard old vehicles, but then modern buses connected even Moscow. For buses in Europe see the web site by Robert, Gerda and Stefan Mayr: busse-europas.de.
Nice curiosities are the rare ‘rolling hotels’, e.g. Rotel Tours to North Africa and Asia. Years ago the author could see in Hungary three Rotel buses with the destination board PEKING passing by, or in Athens during the hippie’s years a refurbished suburban bus departing for India. “The longest bus travel” was shown in 2010 by a TV-report, an exclusive special tour of Avanti, covering the 17,963km Germany – Beijing with many overnight stays in hotels. Mideast In the Middle East, desert buses even with sleeping facilities were famous for running from Damascus to Baghdad before and after WWII (compare trains-worldexpresses.com). In the first years of the 21st century, bus lines were listed connecting Istanbul with Tehran, Tehran with the border of Pakistan, Istanbul with Dammam on the Gulf and Amman with Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. Even a bus line Israel – Cairo had been introduced.
Asia and Pacific Rim In Russia, China and India, state-owned long-distance passenger trains were still leaving not so much space for bus services. Nevertheless, in India long-distance buses are competing with trains. There and also in Southeast Asia buses with a simple lower and upper berth sleeping accommodation can be watched. Chinese buses appeared already in countries along the ‘Silk Road’. Buses established a connection between India and Bangladesh or between Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Overcrowded and over-decorated buses on Himalaya roads are spectacular, but possibly a species being replaced by modern bus services.
Australia and New Zealand Bus line networks continued covering Australia and New Zealand despite the success of air traffic in the late 20th century. Buses are crossing the Null Arbor Plain and the lonely desert regions in the north-west of Australia. Another matter of romanticism are local services on remote Pacific islands.
Africa Trans-Saharan buses were a legend before and after WWII, somewhere shown as special truck/ passenger vehicles. In Sub-Saharan Africa, bus services still now are under-developed and also trucks were seen carrying passengers. The most spectacular vehicles watched, years ago, had been five refurbished buses of a Swedish company on a special tour for Europeans from Kenya to the Cape. Fortunately enough for the majority of people who cannot afford flying, modern up-to-date regular bus lines developed in Africa, also with international itineraries, e.g. in West Africa or between Namibia and Johannesburg or Cape Town. In South Africa even the Greyhound label may have been watched…  Tichka Pass, route Marrakech – Ouarzazarte, Morocco 1998 (WS)
 Gamtrans of Gambia, near Kaolack, Senegal 2000 (WS)
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