Comment by safety1st | Hacker News Reader

Comment by safety1st | Hacker News Reader

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So in Thailand, inter-city buses and even shuttles are a hugely popular mode of transport. They are cheap, clean, reasonably fast and comfortable. This is a third world country, how do they do it? How do they have vastly better inter-city bus transport than the richest country in the world?

I'm pretty sure it boils down to one word, which astoundingly is never mentioned in this article. Monopoly. The American government has seen fit to grant Greyhound a monopoly over most inter-city bus routes, like it has done for so many other lucky companies in so many other sectors. The result of monopoly is almost universally a worse consumer experience. I don't see why it would be any different here.

In Thailand there is no monopoly over bus travel, if you want to take a bus there are state-run options, private options, you name it.

So this is how a random middle-income country on the other side of the world, with a name that one former US President couldn't even pronounce correctly, has beaten the pants off of America. It hasn't (yet) succumbed to monopoly (in this area).

There is no monopoly, see MegaBus, FlixBus, OurBus, many others, not to mention specific city to city routes. For example, I used to live in the Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN area and there are specific shuttle busses to go to Rochester, MN to go to the Mayo Clinic.

Also, remember the US is huge. The bus usage in a country like Costa Rica (the closest non-US country I have experience with) is very high, but you can go the length of the country in a day. That wouldn't even get you part way across the US, so depending on where you're going it's not even comparable.

Your thinking is more accurate than the thinking along the lines of "American infrastructure is bad"

But you fail to consider that business and monopoly are about a lot more than whether a competitor exists. Under the law, the main issue is market power. Greyhound absolutely has 90%+ market power along most of the biggest routes which is a concern for antitrust law. There is a good case that this is illegal under US antitrust law - and there should be more competitors.

> How do they have vastly better inter-city bus transport than the richest country in the world?

There is your error in thinking. The US is lacking a lot of basic infrastructure, even if it is it doesn't act like a rich Country at all.

> The US is lacking a lot of basic infrastructure

The difference in ridership experience in the NYC or Chicago subway system vs. any East Asian major city subway system is eye-opening.

In rich countries two-thirds of the cost of bus service is labor. When labor is cheap compared to capital it's more feasible to have a larger fleet of drivers and buses to keep wait times low. (Cheap labor also means it's feasible to have more diesel mechanics to keep fixing buses well past the 12 year service life benchmark the USA uses). Building a rail system is extremely expensive as they can't offload the cost of cars to customers, and can't reuse an existing right of way. But once built the capacity is unmatched and you only need one driver per train which can have multiple cars each holding 200 people versus one driver per bus (40 riders)

In Anglophone countries governments provide in kind subsidies to automobile users in the form of toll-free highways, mandated parking at every building, and general revenue tax dollars to pay for road costs not covered by fuel taxes or registration fees. Because buses are the cheapest and slowest option the clientele is self-selected as low income. This creates a vicious cycle downward. Greyhound ended service in Canada.

Are busses a monopoly in America? From my anecdotal experience growing up in North Texas and driving all over the state up and down i35, most of the buses appear to be charters for specific routes from the border or between a major city and the casinos in Oklahoma. Do those not count? There's nothing to stop you from taking the casino bus from Houston and getting off in Dallas.

I just googled it and apparently Flixbus is now available in the US; even for the HOU->DFW route I just mentioned.

Flixbus acquired Greyhound in 2021. This made them the largest operator by a wide margin.

They also own or control a number of other inter-city bus operators in the US.

They also have a monopoly (about 95% of the market) in Germany.

I also wonder if some parts of their tourism industry aren’t also subsidized. Tourism is a huge component of Thailand’s economy.

But yes, even on domestic flights you will get a free hot meal in Thailand. A lot better than the tiny bag of pretzels you can expect on a 5 hour flight in the US.

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