Intercity Bus Transportation

Consumer Perspective

Looking at the criterion price, intercity buses are considered to be the most affordable mobility mode. Thus, knowing that money spent on mobility is directly linked to one’s income [1], we can conclude that lower income customers are more likely to travel by intercity buses for long distances. It is thus not surprising that the Asia Pacific Region, with mostly developing countries [2] dominates the global bus market [3] and is furthermore predicted to have the strongest growth. [4]

When it comes to comfort, intercity buses are valued the least comfortable, beaten by trains in 3rd place. Cars are the most comfortable, valued slightly higher than planes. [5]

Furthermore, intercity buses are considered to be the slowest mode, considerably slower than all other modes. [5] Hence, when looking at the overall results of the study, intercity buses are the least used mobility mode with a share of 10% of travels, while passenger cars are the most often used mode. [5]

Additionally, network density is considered to be a critical factor for the potential future usage of intercity buses. Because many connections are not profitable to operate on for providers, there are clear limits to increasing network density. This limits growth potential, giving intercity buses a clear disadvantage compared to railways, which are subsidized by the government and operate on a dense network, regardless of their profitability. [5]

However, there are societal developments that might shift the usage of intercity buses in the near future. Banister (2008) discusses the effect of advancing technology on people’s attitude towards travelling. Being able to perform leisure time activities like shopping online or work during the trip might well decrease the perceived cost of longer travel time and favor slower mobility modes like intercity buses and increase the respective cost of driving by car, at least without autonomous driving functionality. Naturally, this conclusion presumes certain standards of technology, like power outlets and WiFi, as well as the comfort level on board of the coaches. [6]

Societal Clusters

Furthermore, when clustering the society by mobility behavior, 22% are assigned to the “Consistent Green Travellers” who are mostly young professionals, likely to vote green parties and try to use green mobility modes. [7] Knowing about people’s increasing awareness of the climate change [8], movements like Fridays for Future with millions striking for climate justice [9] and the increasing willingness to travel in a more sustainable manner, one can assume that the segment of the “Consistent Green Travellers” is a growing one, while conservative “persistent car users” and “frequent car users” are expected to shrink. [10]  Looking at the carbon footprint, intercity buses and trains are the greenest mobility modes, emitting less than 20% of the greenhouse gases compared to a car. [11] The growing segment of environmentally conscious consumers constitutes a growing potential market for intercity bus providers. The global annual growth rate is projected at 8% until 2026, resulting in a bus market worth USD 58.62 billion, with single deck buses being the preferred coach type. [4] In the long run, Burgdorf, Eisenkopf and Knorr (2018) assume that, in Germany, the increasing share of pensioners with low education leads to increasing potential for the intercity bus market. [5] This trend can be applied to the EU, having a similar demographic development. [12]

Technologies

As mentioned before, the carbon footprint of intercity buses is clearly an advantage compared to passenger cars. However, as cars become electric and increasingly more sustainable, this advantage diminishes over time, if technological advancements for buses fail to appear. Lately, there are advancements with electric engines for intercity buses: The provider of vehicle batteries, Proterra, conducted test runs with buses, achieving a range of 415km. [13] However, the German intercity bus provider FlixMobility stopped field trials with purely electric vehicles because of technical problems with the battery. FlixMobility sees potential in electric buses with advancing technology as well as in hydrogen fuel cell and bio-gas powertrains for the future. [14] There is a lot of research is yet to be conducted and mass production is yet to be put in place in order to produce at competitive prices. Forecasts imply that hydrogen fuel cells will play an important role for transportation in the near future, seeing the enormous potential of this technology, once it is fully developed and practicable. [15] Experts however see the advantages of the hydrogen powertrain particularly for large vehicles with high daily mileages, such as intercity buses. [16] [17]

Sources

[1] Schafer, A., & Victor, D. G. (2000). The future mobility of the world population. Transportation research part a: policy and practice, 34(3), 171-205.

[2] Roser, M. (2019). Human Development Index. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/human-development-index

[3] Goldstein Research (2020). Global Bus Market Industry Analysis.

[4] Mordor Intelligence (2020). Bus Market - Growth, Trends, Covid-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2021 - 2026).

[5] Burgdorf, C., Eisenkopf, A., & Knorr, A. (2018). User acceptance of long distance bus services in Germany. Research in Transportation Economics, 69, 270-283.

[6] Banister, D. (2008). The sustainable mobility paradigm. Transport policy, 15(2), 73-80.

[7] Prillwitz, J., & Barr, S. (2011). Moving towards sustainability? Mobility styles, attitudes and individual travel behaviour. Journal of transport geography, 19(6), 1590-1600.

[8] Umweltbundesamt (2021a). Umweltbewusstsein in Deutschland. Retrieved from https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/themen/nachhaltigkeit-strategien-internationales/umweltbewusstsein-in-deutschland

[9] Fridays for Future (2021). Strike Statistics. Retrieved from https://fridaysforfuture.org/what-we-do/strike-statistics/

[10] Bundeswahlleiter. (26. September, 2021). Gewinne und Verluste der Parteien bei der Bundestagswahl am 26. September 2021 im Vergleich zur vorherigen Bundestagswahl (Veränderung des Zweitstimmenanteils in Prozentpunkten) [Graph]. In Statista. Zugriff am 09. Dezember 2021, von https://de-statista-com.eaccess.ub.tum.de/statistik/daten/studie/1256846/umfrage/gewinne-und-verluste-der-parteien-bei-der-bundestagswahl-2021/

[11] Umweltbundesamt (2021). Vergleich der durchschnittlichen Emissionen einzelner Verkehrsmittel im Personenverkehr in Deutschland. Retrieved from https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/bild/vergleich-der-durchschnittlichen-emissionen-0

[12] Eatock, D. (2019). Demografischer Ausblick für die Europäische Union 2019.

[13] Proterra Inc. (2015). Proterra Catalyst Range Test: 258 Miles on a Single Charge. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zERKJIeA3F4

[14] Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (2019). Flixbus beerdigt Elektrobus-Projekt. Retrieved from https://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/auto-verkehr/flixbus-beendet-elektrobus-projekt-wegen-technischer-probleme-16518476.html

[15] Manoharan, Y., Hosseini, S. E., Butler, B., Alzhahrani, H., Senior, B. T. F., Ashuri, T., & Krohn, J. (2019). Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles; current status and future prospect. Applied Sciences, 9(11), 2296.

[16] Volkswagen AG (2019). Hydrogen or battery? A clear case, until further notice.

[17] Quaschning, V. (2020). Electric car, diesel or hydrogen - how do we stop the climate crisis? Retrieved: December 12, 2021 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBqNS0nQzPY