Advantages and Disadvantages of Mega Bus in the US Intercity Bus Market

This case study examines the advantages and disadvantages of Mega Bus in the US intercity bus market. It discusses the low cost of tickets, well-equipped coaches, green advantage, and reliability of Mega Bus. It also explores the competition faced by Mega Bus and its suitability for college students. The study concludes with a comparison of Mega Bus with other modes of transportation.

Running head: CASE STUDY 1
Case Study on Mega Bus
Student
Institution

CASE STUDY 2
1. As a late mover into the US intercity bus market, what advantages and disadvantages
doers Mega bus have?
Advantages of mega bus
Mega bus has very low cost as its tickets a very cheap - this is the mode of traveling
which has the lowest cost as from 1$. This has greatly changed traveling habit in the US
especially for the young people and the students. The distance in between is too far to drive for
leisure but it’s very close as per the amount paid for these buses making it more cheap and
attracting many customers. Also all tickets are booked online eliminating maintenance of ticket
booths thus attracting democratic groups which are more educated (Bie, Gong, & Liu, 2015).
Coaches of mega bus are well equipped with power outlets and Wi-Fi –this allows
passengers to choose mega bus as they feel it’s more productive and has more fun. This is
because no other travelling is cool like that even first class in airlines (Bie, Gong, & Liu, 2015).
This makes almost 37% of the passengers to make decision to aboard this mega bus due to
strongly available power outlets and Wi-Fi. This also makes people who are running businesses
to continue working while in the bus due to availability of strong reassures required.
The buses are well maintained – mega bus as they always follow buses of china town,
they stop regularly so as they can disembark and the passengers to board the vehicle. This saves
a huge amount of money of the customers and also the time (Zhang et al., 2014). If the buses are
poorly maintained no passengers will be tempted to aboard the mega bus as they feel not save
and they are wasting time.

CASE STUDY 3
Mega bus offers “green” advantage- this is in terms of prices of the gas and the rise of
environmental consciousness. This is because the mega bus is more fuel efficient four times
more than the car. Also it has reduced its fuel consumption by almost 11 gallons a year which is
like taking off road 24000 cars. This has made transportation easy in US.
Mega buses are more reliable- this is because they drop everyone in his or her deports
and picks them up. This makes everyone be able to know that he or she will be able to get easy
transportation through these buses (Zhang et al., 2014). Also there tickets are more reliable as if
booked online one is able to tell when there is plenty of sits and also the he or she is able to
choose the suitable sit for him or her.
Disadvantages
High competition- mega bus is highly competed by the stagecoach group. This group of
stagecoach employs approximately 18000 people to work in the airlines which make the coaches
to carry its activities of transportation in simpler way than the mega buses. They offer dirt cheap
tickets for the early passengers and relative high prices to late passengers thus resulting to high
competition. Stagecoaches have workers who attend the customers in more easy way without
taking a lot of time (Warnock et al., 2015. Also this makes mega bus to have lower large number
of early passengers than late customers as they have moved to stagecoach which is cheaper than
any other. Also it competes with railway in some routes where the tickets of mega bus cost one-
tenth of Amtrak.
It takes a lot of time – even though the passengers like the Wi-Fi this kind of
transportation doers not suit long distance travelers. This is because they became tired on the
way due to many terminus of dropping passengers and others start the journey. Mega bus is only

CASE STUDY 4
situated for short distance travelers and medium distance travelers only. Example the distance
between the Detroit and Chicago and that between DC and New York it’s not easy for one to
travel with mega bus for leisure as its too far so they have to use other means.
It’s only booked online- the tickets of mega buses are only booked online making it
difficult for the ones who lack the internet not able to get the ticket. Even though online tickets
attract little or no maintenance in ticket booths expenses, they lose some customers who cannot
make it to order the tickets online. Also sometimes online services crash making it difficult for
people to get the services required.
2. Doers Mega bus have any overwhelming resources and capabilities
Mega bus has overwhelming support from the US market. Even though it’s very new to
the market, people have backed it up with full support to strong become second largest firm in
transportation (Wang et al., 2015). It is capable of transporting more than 13 million travelers
which is high target for the mega buses to bring a bright future on them. It also offers good
services thus attracting more customers attracting having overwhelming resources.
Also the mega buses have overwhelming resources from its customers as they have a lot
of customers where they get a lot of profits (Giulianotti et al., 2015). They have little
maintenance costs which have made the mega buses to trend everywhere in US making everyone
to like it.
They also have capabilities of tending everywhere they have not reached and making the
customers happier.

CASE STUDY 5
3. As a college student, among choices of private car, airplane, Greyhound and Mega bus
between Chicago and Columbus, which mode would you choose? Why?
As a college student I would choose mega bus. This is because it has so many advantages
over its disadvantages. As the students they like networking a lot. This makes the student to like
this bus as they have a Wi-Fi and power outlets which make travelling more easily than any
other thing. Also the fare by mega buses is very cheap. This makes the students to like it more as
they like very cheap things. Also the college students like mega buses as they are well
maintained. Even though they don’t have high speed but they have everything which is of high
quality and in good maintenance. These buses also drop everyone in his or her door step and
also they pick them making them more efficient in this transportation sector and more reliable
(Fageda, Suau-Sanchez, & Mason, 2015).
Mega buses also carry many people at the same time. This makes the students to love the
buses as they are like travelling in groups very much as it fun unto them.

CASE STUDY 6
References
Bie, Y., Gong, X., & Liu, Z. (2015). Time of day intervals partition for bus schedule using GPS
data. Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, 60, 443-456.
Fageda, X., Suau-Sanchez, P., & Mason, K. J. (2015). The evolving low-cost business model:
Network implications of fare bundling and connecting flights in Europe. Journal of Air
Transport Management, 42, 289-296.
Giulianotti, R., Armstrong, G., Hales, G., & Hobbs, D. (2015). Global sport mega‐events and the
politics of mobility: the case of the L ondon 2012 O lympics. The British journal of
sociology, 66(1), 118-140.
Wang, R., Wu, Y., Ke, W., Zhang, S., Zhou, B., & Hao, J. (2015). Can propulsion and fuel
diversity for the bus fleet achieve the win–win strategy of energy conservation and
environmental protection?. Applied Energy, 147, 92-103.
Warnock, J., Curran, B., Badar, J., Fredeman, G., Plass, D., Chan, Y. & Mayer, G. (2015,
February). 4.1 22nm next-generation ibm system z microprocessor. In 2015 IEEE
International Solid-State Circuits Conference-(ISSCC) Digest of Technical Papers (pp. 1-
3). IEEE.
Zhang, Q., Yang, H., Wang, Q., & Zhang, A. (2014). Market power and its determinants in the
Chinese airline industry. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 64, 1-13.