Greyhound in N.O. grooms terminals to lure younger riders

New Orleans CityBusiness, Jan 14, 2008 by Emilie Bahr

Waiting last Tuesday to board buses bound for nearby Houston and far away Michigan, a half dozen people at New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal sat watching CNN on the flat-screen TV in Greyhound's waiting area.

The terminal walls, once a "nasty, ugly brown," according to Greyhound manager Mike Walters, gleamed a bright white and blue. Restrooms were clean. Staff was friendly. Newly upholstered buses glistened with new paint jobs.

The improvements, which include everything from new staff uniforms and customer service training to new plasma TVs, are part of a $60-million national upgrade completed in November by the Dallas-based bus line.

"We've always been associated with safe and affordable travel," said spokesman Dustin Clark. "This whole campaign was our effort to make enjoyable part of that equation."

Greyhound's new ad campaign, "We're on our Way," targets college students and young urbanites -- groups not as familiar with or who may not care as much about the stigma long attached to bus travel.

The first television ads appeared in mid-November during late- night talk shows and on networks such as MTV and BET. Print ads are slated for magazines including Rolling Stone and Vibe.

The latest initiative follows significant cuts by the company in recent years. In 2004, Greyhound Lines eliminated nearly 1,000 unprofitable routes nationwide, including service to a handful of Louisiana cities such as Kentwood, Amite, Ponchatoula and Mandeville.

The Greyhound campaign coincides with the first significant rebound in intercity bus travel in decades, according to a study released in December by DePaul University's Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development.

After more than 40 years of declining service, intercity bus departures rose nationwide by more than 13 percent in the year beginning February 2006 from a national average of 422 in 2006 to 481 in 2007. The numbers are based on a DePaul review of scheduled arrivals and departures of intercity bus companies in 12 U.S. cities.

Along with growing consumer distaste for airline and vehicular travel, rising fuel costs are a clear factor in the bus travel resurgence, said Joe Schwieterman, executive director of the Chaddick Institute and a professor of public service at DePaul.

Fuel prices are also a top reason for passenger increases locally, Walters said.

"With gas prices now topping $3 a gallon, that has really inflated our ridership, especially through the holiday season," said Walters, who couldn't provide passenger numbers to verify the trend.

A trip from New Orleans to Baton Rouge costs about $15. The average Greyhound ticket runs around $45, roughly the cost of filling up the tank on a typical sedan these days.

The post-Katrina diaspora is also contributing to rising demand, Walters said. Many former New Orleans residents still live in Atlanta, Houston and Baton Rouge and Greyhound is experiencing record traffic along those routes, Walters said.

"Since Katrina, New Orleans-to-Houston sells out almost daily," Walters said, estimating around 150 passengers leave New Orleans for Houston daily aboard Greyhound buses. "We've really boomed to the point business has almost doubled."

Waiting for a bus to Houston Tuesday, 28-year-old Kim Williams, a native New Orleanian, said she takes the seven-hour bus trip many times per month. Affordability and convenience are the primary reasons she chooses the bus over other modes of transportation.

The new accommodations aren't exactly luxurious, she said through a yawn, explaining she'd stayed up the night before so she'd be able to sleep through the entire ride.

"It used to be enjoyable," Williams said. But in the past three years or so, she said, the bus has gotten significantly more crowded.

Allen Ramos, 34, offered a more enthusiastic review. Living in Atlanta since Katrina, Ramos said he typically takes the bus on his frequent trips back home.

"It's worth my while," he said. "On a scale of one to 10, I give it a hundred."

Walters said recent renovations and mounting fuel prices propel his business but conceded the decades-long image of bus travel as a mode of last resort is a tough one to overcome.

The authors of the DePaul study agreed.

"The jury is still out on whether more people other than the low- income will take the bus on trips more than a few hundred miles or between small cities where traffic congestion is not an issue," the study said. "Greyhound probably has little chance of winning back many affluent travelers anytime soon. The image of intercity bus lines, however, is clearly on the mend."