There’s a majesty to it and a mystery, even though it’s a form of transportation that many people think of as lesser than cars, trains, or airplanes. It has the ability to force commonality between people and it always gets someone to their destination, even if it is a little slower than other forms of transportation. It is the motorcoach.
The motorcoach has been around since the 1800’s, around the time engines were invented. The first horse-drawn carriages were started in the early 1800’s, though people likely got tired of the muck that horses dragged in the streets. When the motor came around, it was likely adopted quickly in the coaches that transported people across the city.
Today, the beautiful vehicle that inherited its legacy is the bus.
The city bus is sometimes looked at as a lesser form of transportation. It’s cheaper than owning a car, owning a truck, owning a vehicle, and slower too. It takes time for a bus to get from destination to destination, often much slower than a vehicle would. It needs to take stops. It needs passengers to board. It needs to drop off passengers.
But it has qualities that the others lack and that some may find surprising. For one, it is the most environmentally friendly vehicle around. There are some statistics that back this up. They are:
- Motorcoaches achieve 206.6 passenger miles per gallon (MPG), commuter rail gets 92.4 passenger MPG, transit buses achieve 31.4 passenger MPG, domestic airplane achieves 44 passenger MPG, personal automobiles averaged 27.2 passenger MPG, and hybrid cars 46 passenger MPG.
- Motorcoaches are 3 times more efficient in reducing CO2 output when compared to commuter rail, and 6 times more efficient than transit buses.
- Each full motorcoach has the potential of removing 55 autos from the highway, reducing congestion, cutting energy use, and reducing emissions.
- Motorcoaches emit the least carbon dioxide per passenger mile when compared to other forms of transportation.
Motorcoaches have that appeal. They are cost-effective, transporting many people per mile at a lower cost than other vehicles. They are environmentally friendly, more efficient at reducing carbon dioxide emissions than other vehicles. So much so that they have the potential at removing dozens of cars from the highway.
They are also useful for areas where there is a high degree of congestion and foot traffic. A bus in a city center can make numerous stops and drop people off at locations that aren’t far away. Buses in suburban areas wouldn’t make sense according to that reason: The areas are too far apart for a bus to be useful.
Buses are often seen in municipalities, city centers, or midtown areas. There, the buses run back and forth between the popular areas in a city. There are a lot of people in a city, with a high degree of density. The bus can traffic a lot of people there, in a short amount of time. It is more efficient.
Buses are also good for short term travel to a destination. Buses can take people from city to city. They’re useful in rural regions where people don’t have another form of transportation. People rely on buses to get around. Buses can also be chartered, meaning they can be rented to go to a certain place. This is helpful as well.
This kind of bus is called a charter bus. A charter bus is not necessarily the same as one of those buses where people go to drink and be merry. A charter bus can be taken to numerous destinations and can move people as far ranging as families and school children. A charter bus can have a specific destination. It becomes a field trip.
There are certain terms worth knowing for someone looking to charter a bus. There are certain aspects that someone needs to be aware of. They need to know how to travel comfortably on a bus, whether there is WiFi on a bus, how to rent a charter bus, what the tips on chartering a bus are, whether there can be a tour group, and more.
Riding a bus may not seem like a glamorous thing when compared to traveling by plane or train. But it is environmentally friendly and is efficient at moving a large amount of people to a destination.