Megabus coaches to go double decker

Competition for Chinatown bus service out in the Northeast remains high, with Boltbus, Greyhound and Megabus now elbowing their way into the market.

As each carrier tries to outperform the other in costs and amenities, we’ve seen new services like wireless internet, video screens and power ports incorporated into the coaches. I took a Boltbus between Washington DC and New York earlier this year and despite the internet not working correctly (which they claim to have fixed), thoroughly enjoyed the ride.

Now Megabus is rolling out a series of new coaches that will operate all over the eastern corridor that feature all of the latest amenities and are double decker.

Sure, double decker buses don’t give you any extra comfort on the road (rather, you have less headroom), but there’s something quaint and fun about riding in the top floor of a bus, especially if you’re in the front seat. Megabus points out that this is an ecologically friendly alternative to driving yourself or flying — the fuel consumed per person on a double decker is only 0.46 gallons versus 2.75 to drive yourself or 3.73 to fly on a 737.

I still can’t figure out how the companies make money by offering so many low fares. On the bus I took earlier this year, there were no more than 10 people onboard. Their fares alone maybe could have covered fuel, but what about operating costs and paying the driver?

Regardless, try out the service while you can — the first double decker Megabuses are scheduled to travel between Washington DC and New York.

Boltbus tweaks onboard wifi, good and evil return to balance

I had the pleasure of riding Boltbus last week, taking the time to ride the MARC all of the way from Baltimore to DC just for the chance to ride the bus back to New York. In my review, I pointed out that the service was nice, clean and on time, although I had issues with the encryption of their wireless network. Indeed, as of their frontpage last week they were having issues with Macintosh users connecting to their über secure mobile network.

David Hall from Boltbus got in touch last week to update me on their networking issues. He told me:

Want to know the truth… we don’t like the 26 digit key either… we run credit card transactions over that network and the encryption is meant to protect those transmissions. This weekend… we are loading new programming and eliminating the key

Sweet! Given the increasing number of Iphone, Mac and Linux users this will make integration into the wireless network easier all around. If someone rides on Boltbus this week, let me know how things went and I’ll update this post.