I’ve been on a government bus in Thailand. The seat reclines into almost laying position, comes with built in massager, video games and stewardess service. The cost of non-stop 9 hour ride was $20.
I don't think this is salient to the discussion specifically of Greyhound shuttering service in rural Canada. There are no train lines that operate connecting most of the outposts described in the article to urban areas.
The availability of hugely subsidised gas and automobiles has seen people hoodwinked into taking their lives in their hands by driving insanely long distances in frequently dangerous weather. It is all part of costs being displaced onto individuals (who often welcome the displacement as they believe it increases their freedom). Some of those costs are of course also externalized into environmental impacts.
If you have access to gasoline through hours and hours of wilderness (hint: no gas stations).
If the roads are passable.
If you have a safe place to stop and sleep during your trip (hint: you don't).
In any case, I'm pretty sure a bus needs the roads to be passable as well.
I mean, you don't need to think about them for very long, but you do want to have a plan for being stuck for hours, or having to turn around in the middle of Nowhere, BC.
It obviously doesn’t make sense to run the buses from/to areas where there’s little ridership.
It’s like any other utility. They probably have a septic tank instead of sewer. Slow satellite internet. Pump your own water. Now also lack of bus.
The trend is people moving to the cities. It’s undeniable.
Naturally there will be huge differences in what is cost-effective for these two very different countries.
Obviously, rural vs urban and local prevailing wages would mean this varies between locations - but I doubt Canadian wages are much different to those in the UK.
[1] http://www.tas.uk.net/content/images/Session4-Costs-SteveWar... page 13
Maybe Greyhound elsewhere is different, but for me the entire experience was a nightmare. I took greyhound instead of a plane to save a little money, but I would gladly pay $100 extra just to avoid the whole mess of getting signed in and on the bus.
I know that's not true, at least. I got the best prices and wifi on Greyhound Express buses ~5 years ago.
They don't have 'hostesses' because we don't have cheap labour.
This is more about plentiful cars, and expensive gas.
40 years ago not everyone had a car, now they do.
Gas was cheap, now it's more expensive driving the prices up somewhat.
Also, the economies in those areas have not kept up meaning it's difficult for them to keep up the demand.
It's an extremely low margin business any one piece fails, and it's up.
It may have been an isolated incident, but the Greyhound bus driver I had the last time seemed to have a really sour attitude and was not helpful at all.
The business logic for this made sense in a way - GM like to sell lots of cars that have to be replaced every few years rather than a small quantity of buses/coaches that are engineered to provide years of reliable service.
Once the market had been nobbled this way the passenger numbers dropped meaning that no capital was available for better buses/coaches. So there may be reasons from fifty years ago that led to your observation.