State of the Bus Industry

A number of different organizations and sources picked March of 2022 as the two-year anniversary of the pandemic. They have elected to issue various documents and reports so as to comment on how things have changed and where things stand. What we will try to do is to pick the information that may be appropriate to the bus industry and put it together for our readers.

General Comments
As one might expect, the overall developments are a combination of both pros and cons. On the pro side, it is obvious that the bus industry is coming back although some segments of the industry are doing better than others. As a general rule what we are seeing is that most everyone on the operating side of the business is trying to get an increased number of buses back on the road. What is interesting is that some new services were started during the pandemic, showing that many people are positive about the future of the industry. It might also be mentioned that while increased fuel prices make operating costs higher, the experts tend to agree that they will cause people to mode shift from automobiles to buses.

On the negative side, the industry is still looking for bus drivers. On several occasions we have heard about booked bus trips that were cancelled because of a shortage of drivers. This may do more to slow the return of the industry than the pandemic. Another concern is the reduced number of new bus
sales, particularly in the private sector. This is slowing down improvement on the manufacturing and supply side of the business although the trade shows and publications are trying their best in spite of this.

Among other noteworthy items is the trend to battery-electric and hydrogen fuel cell buses that we will mention later. In spite of the pandemic, Daimler introduced a new model to the North American market and Temsa redesigned their TS 45 model. MCI, Temsa and ABC are all moving ahead with battery-electric coaches.

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