The Closure of Owen Sound’s Bus Terminal

The closure of Owen Sound’s bus terminal and Greyhound’s decision to cut its routes to the city has put a spotlight on transportation issues in our area.

Specifically, it has highlighted the importance of intercity bus service to rural communities.

Students attending school in Toronto, London, Barrie and elsewhere, for example, rely on the bus to get to and from their rural Ontario homes.

People use the bus to get to hospitals in major Ontario cities, to visit family in southern Ontario and to access services not found locally. Some people just want to hop aboard a bus to spend time in Toronto.

Despite the need for bus transportation, options for people in rural Ontario, including Grey-Bruce, continue to decline.

Greyhound now only makes one trip daily into and out of Owen Sound. The bus takes people to Toronto via Collingwood and Barrie. Aboutown Northlink only makes a trip between Owen Sound and London three times a week.

People wanting to get to Orangeville, KitchenerWaterloo, Guelph, Hamilton or other cities must transfer to another bus in Toronto or London. It can be a long trip.

The provincial government should step up and do something about this transportation shortage. More should be done to encourage bus companies to make the trek to and from Owen Sound.

Part of the problem, it seems, is Ontario’s current regulatory framework for intercity bus transportation.

Companies must apply to the Ontario Highway Transport Board to receive a permit before it can operate a new route.

John Emberson, president of Coach Canada, said the process is time consuming and expensive. The applicant must provide a business plan, among other things, to the board.

Other companies can object to the permit request, he said, and the board will often side with the firm that currently offers the same or a similar route.

The process limits competition, he said, and can allow some companies to hold a monopoly on certain routes.

Coach Canada, which owns more than 200 buses, is among the companies lobbying the province to deregulate the system.
Alberta and Manitoba have done it. Alberta implemented a new modernized framework in 2011. Companies there now have the option of running a smaller bus for certain routes or creating a flexible schedule without, as happened in the past, having their application objected to by existing carriers, which would have triggered a full-blown hearing.

It’s time for Ontario to take a serious look at doing the same.
There are also calls from outside of the industry for the province to make changes to improve Ontario’s regional transportation network.

Owen Sound Mayor Deb Haswell, for one, has called on the province to explore ways to encourage more buses to run routes to the city.

The Southwest Economic Alliance (SWEA), meanwhile, is calling on both the provincial and federal governments “to work together to plan and adequately fund a regional transportation network.”
A summit, with politicians, transportation companies and advocacy groups, is scheduled for Nov. 14.

“The objective is to generate cooperation, planning and policy development which will lead to more transportation in southwestern Ontario,” SWEA says.

It is our hope that SWEA will have luck with its campaign.
However, it’s important that Owen Sound also benefit from any improved regional transportation system.

Without changes, the city could become even more isolated from the rest of southern Ontario.

Archie Fleming Receives "Good Driver Award"

Electronic log rule on the horizon, says FMCSA

     

A new electronic log rule could be proposed by September, said Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration head Anne Ferro Thursday, March 14, at a congressional hearing, testifying to a House subcommittee.


The Highways and Transit Subcommittee — part of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure — questioned Department of Transportation administration heads for two and a half hours wanting updates on progress made to rules and initiatives in the MAP-21 highway funding law from last summer.


The law requires that an electronic onboard recorder (electronic log) rule be made by the time the law expires in mid-2014.
Ferro was questioned by the subcommittee’s chairman Rep. 
Thomas Petri (R-Ore.) about potential issues of trying to squeeze every driver’s schedule into what he called a “one size fits all” rule, including scenarios of drivers being close to home or close to a destination and running out of hours.


Ferro said uniformity has been a big issue for FMCSA in making the rule, but that uniformity is a must to “ensure a level playing field.” She also said that most companies who switch find electronic logs to be “effective and profitable,” and that most drivers “over time” prefer EOBRs to paper logs.


She was also pressed by Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) about the problems presented by detention time to hours of service rules and what the agency plans to do about it.


A study is underway, Ferro said, and the agency is expecting results by 2015.

Greyhound Express — Non-Stop Service

Greyhound Express — the company’s premium non-stop service between major cities — will expand to eight new markets on Oct. 31, connecting the Southeast to Southwest and the Midwest to the Northeast. New markets include Montgomery, Ala.; Mobile, Ala.; New Orleans; Baton Rouge, La.; Beaumont, Texas; Erie, Pa.; Buffalo, N.Y. and Oklahoma City, Okla. Greyhound Express, which launched less than two years ago, is available in nearly 80 markets and features the largest network of nearly 800 potential direct-service intercity pairs. Tickets are now on sale at www.mygreyhoundexpress.com, with everyday fares starting at $1.
The new routes include:
• Atlanta – Montgomery – Birmingham – Mobile – New Orleans – Baton Rouge – Beaumont – Houston
• Cleveland – Erie – Buffalo
• Dallas – Oklahoma City
Four daily round trips will be available on the Atlanta to Houston route, Cleveland to Buffalo will offer three daily roundtrips and one round trip will be available between Dallas and Oklahoma City.
“Greyhound has been able to rapidly grow its Express service since its inception due to our customers’ positive response to the higher level of service that nobody else can match in the business. With an average growth rate of more than 20 percent in the markets where we’ve introduced Express, it speaks volumes to how we have successfully upgraded the intercity bus travel experience,” said Dave Leach, president and CEO, Greyhound. “As travelers plan for the holiday season, they know that Greyhound Express allows them to visit friends and family at an affordable price while enjoying a fast, safe and comfortable ride.”

Greyhound Express operates modern, environmentally friendly buses equipped with features such as free Wi-Fi, power outlets, leather seats, reserved seating and extra legroom. Customers can buy their Express ticket online to take advantage of discount pricing, print their ticket at home, or pick it up at a self-service ticketing kiosk, and know a guaranteed seat is waiting for them. Additionally, Express customers can relax in private waiting areas, protected from the elements in a secure environment, with a dedicated guest services specialist to provide an extra level of customer assistance. All tickets are nonrefundable.

Greyhound Express provides non-stop service between major cities, originating from Greyhound service hubs including New York, Washington D.C., Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas and Calgary, Alberta. For those who need long-distance connections, stations along Greyhound Express routes allow travelers to easily connect to an established network of more than 3,800 Greyhound destinations throughout North America.
For fare and schedule information and to purchase tickets, visit www.mygreyhoundexpress.com.
About Greyhound

Greyhound is the largest North American provider of intercity bus transportation, serving more than 3,800 destinations across the continent. The company also provides Greyhound Package Express (GPX) and charter services. For fare and schedule information and to buy tickets call 1-800-231-2222 or visit the website at www.greyhound.com. For the latest news and travel deals, follow GreyhoundBus on Twitter at www.twitter.com/GreyhoundBus, Like us on Facebook at www.facebook/GreyhoundBus, or follow our new blog, The Hound, at www.bloggreyhound.com.

Greyhound Passengers Complain Sick Rider

Greyhound Passengers Complain Sick Rider Allowed To Stay On Bus

DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) – Some Greyhound bus passengers are questioning whether they were exposed to an illness after they say they were forced to share a bus with a sick passenger.
“We both noticed how sick he was and then he started coughing and hacking up blood,” says Erin Dent.

Dent and fellow passenger Doreen Krueger are now concerned that they may have been exposed to Tuberculosis – after riding alongside the sick passenger for nearly two days.  Krueger says he boarded the bus in Los Angeles, California on Saturday.  She says as the bus continued east, his illness appeared to worsen.

“He was coughing and hacking,” Krueger explains.
She says riders grew restless and demanded that the bus driver remove the sick passenger.  Greyhound confirms the driver pulled over in west Texas and called paramedics.
“They stopped in Van Horn and called an ambulance,” recalls Kreuger.  “The ambulance said we couldn’t test him for TB because it would take 2 days.”

The ill passenger was allowed to continue on the trip if he agreed to wear a mask.   But riders say the man was deaf and there was a communication break down.
“Both different drivers said ‘Put hands over your mouth or hold this over your mouth,’ he would not do it,” says Krueger.

Krueger said she and dozens of others wanted to get off the bus but paramedics convinced them to stay on.
“I’d already been with him a day and a half,” she says.  “The ambulance said it wouldn’t make any difference if (I had) already been exposed.”
Dent also says new passengers were allowed to board.
Once the bus reached Dallas, passengers were given complaint forms to voice their concerns, but Dent and Krueger say they need more than a pen and paper to address their worries
“If we’ve been exposed then everybody we come in contact with from now on can be exposed, so we’re real concerned about our families,” says Dent.

Greyhound says it has no record of where the passenger is at this time or if he went to the hospital.  Company executives told CBS 11′s Sharrie Williams that the bus driver followed correct protocol and that the sick passenger did wear the mask as he was instructed to.
CBS 11 contacted Dallas County Health and Human Services about this story, which is offering free TB tests to anyone who was a passenger on the bus.

Software Allows Insurers to Track Driving

 

 

New software allows insurers to track driving habits and personalize premiums

OMAR EL AKKAD

The Globe and Mail

Published Monday, Aug. 19 2013, 6:00 AM EDT

 

Paul-André Savoie is changing the car-insurance industry by helping insurers monitor every move you make.
Customer data provided by Mr. Savoie’s tech company, based in Laval, Que., turns a car-insurance bill from a static monthly figure into something variable – the more unsafe a customer’s driving habits, the higher the cost.

More Related to this Story

• Car Gizmos Insurance companies can track your driving habits with wireless gadget
• Auto News Luxury-car tech that helped catch Boston bombing suspects is probably in your Chevy, too
• Road Test Dodge Dart Euro-styled Dodge Dart will make you forget about the Neon

watch

Video: Conventional wisdom says big cars are safer, but that's not always true

watch

Video: Earnings promise silver lining for fretting China investors

watch

Video: Half of small cars score badly on tougher U.S. crash tests

“It creates a huge financial incentive on a monthly basis to drive safe,” said Mr. Savoie, president and CEO of Baseline Telematics. “We are attracting safer drivers and rehabilitating other drivers.”A handful of Canadian insurers have started testing the software in pilot programs. 

Those programs are overwhelmingly aimed at drivers 25 and younger. In some cases, it is the drivers’ parents signing them up to keep close tabs on their driving habits.Since the inception of the modern car-insurance industry, premiums in Canada and much of the world have been determined by broad criteria, including age and car model. 


However, the ubiquity of movement sensors available in many modern vehicles – as well as the ability to analyze the massive amounts of data produced by those sensors – has created a new brand of insurance.




By measuring exactly how each of their customers drives in real time, insurers are starting to charge individual premiums based on monitored driving habits.


For 17 years, Mr. Savoie’s company has been building software and hardware for the insurance industry. Over the past year or so, a couple of Canadian insurers have started deploying Baseline’s namesake technology, “telematics.”
The product collects information from the vehicles of individual drivers and allows insurers to bill their customers according to these data. The software uses sensors to monitor speed, acceleration, braking and other metrics.


That information is then analyzed for signs of unsafe driving, such as hard braking or speed-limit violations (the software monitors a vehicle’s location to determine whether drivers are keeping within limits).


While deployment of the technology is still in the testing stages among a handful of insurance companies, its usage reflects the widespread adoption of tools that allow companies to track customer habits.


The ability to monitor and adapt to the behaviour of individual customers, for example, was part of the rationale for last month’s announcement by Loblaw Cos. Ltd. that it will acquire Shoppers Drug Mart Corp. for $12.4-billion. Shoppers’ Optimum loyalty program will give Loblaw purchasing information on some 10 million customers.


The interactive and social-media-friendly nature of Mr. Savoie’s software is meant to quell potential resistance from younger customers. Customers get weekly and monthly updates on their driving habits, are shown how they compare to others in their age group, and have the option to publish that information on Facebook.


“By people getting regular feedback and seeing in graphical illustration how they’re driving compared to their peers, it has an impact on how they drive,” said Don Thompson, vice-president of product management at Saskatchewan Government Insurance, which is testing the first telematics program for motorcycle insurance.
The telematics system itself is largely reliant on “big data” analytics – a fast-growing industry focused on automatically sifting through huge amounts of information to find previously undiscovered trends.


To do that with the data collected by the telematics systems, Baseline sought the assistance of SAP, an analytics company whose customers include F1 racing teams and life-insurance providers – the racing teams use SAP technology to collect and analyze data from cars in real time during races, and the insurers use it to look for patterns consistent with fraudulent claims.


Baseline charges its customers an activation fee up front and a monthly subscription fee afterward. The exact cost of the system differs from insurer to insurer.


By sifting through the data collected by the telematics program, Baseline and its customers are starting to see the patterns that help to flag high-risk driving. For example, frequent hard braking is a strong indicator of unsafe driving in cars, and the strongest indicator with respect to motorcyclists is cornering. As a result, Baseline’s telematics hardware for motorbikes includes a 3-D accelerometer designed to measure the way a rider takes a corner.


In time, insurers say the new system will allow them to pinpoint every customer’s risk level, and charge them accordingly, instead of relying on broad metrics.


“When somebody is a very bad driver, we see that after few months they’re not with us any more – they discover they’re not good and they go with a traditional insurer,” says Suzanne Michaud, vice-president of client experience at Mobiliz, which is running a telematics insurance program in Quebec.


“With telematics we don’t charge you an average premium, we charge you your premium.”
The telematics-based systems still constitute a tiny fraction of overall insurance programs in Canada, and face growing pains. For example, the motorbike version of the technology is so new that very little data on the metrics associated with safe motorbike driving exist. That prompted Saskatchewan Government Insurance to ask skilled riders to come out to a local track to demonstrate proper riding techniques on motorbikes fitted with monitoring equipment, which provided some baseline data.


However, there are many privacy issues related to the frequent collection of data from drivers, including their location and speed. Protocols are being developed on a company-by-company basis on how data is stored and secured, as well as what to do if the data show extreme violations, such as speeds so far above posted limits that a driver could be criminally charged. In such cases, some insurers have opted to slap the customer with an immediate extra charge on that month’s bill, hoping a hit to the wallet will help change behaviour.


But despite the privacy issues, Mr. Savoie is adamant that telematics-based policies will soon become the norm in Canada and throughout much of the world. In the early days of the service, Baseline had to install special hardware in vehicles to collect data. Now, the company is working on a smartphone app, which uses the sensors on those devices to collect the same information.


Soon, the company won’t even have to do that, Mr. Savoie said, because most car companies are already building those sensors into the cars.


“I think in the next two or three years, you will not be able to buy a car that doesn’t have a telematics connection back to the manufacturers. I think cars are basically going to be smartphones.”
But perhaps the most significant impact of telematics-based insurance is its applicability to myriad other industries. Richard Daukant, national vice-president of strategic engagements at SAP, notes that there has been an explosion in so-called body metrics hardware over the past few years – wearable monitors that collect information such as heart rate, physical activity and calories burned.
Now, he says, health insurance companies are starting to take a long look at that technology, hoping to harness it for a new type of customized insurance policy, whose premiums are determined by each customer’s lifestyle.



“It’s almost pay as you live, not pay as you drive.”

DesignLine Files for Bankruptcy Protection

Charlotte hybrid busmaker DesignLine files for bankruptcy protection

 

Charlotte busmaker DesignLine Corp. — which has struggled with production delays and lawsuits since relocating its headquarters here from New Zealand in 2006 — filed Thursday for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, according to court documents.


The company halted work at its southwest Charlotte plant late last month. In a written statement at the time, it called the action temporary.


In the bankruptcy filing, the company listed assets of $14.06 million and debts of $37.5 million.


Its largest creditors listed in the filing include:

•$3.64 million to New Jersey Transit for payments on buses not delivered.
•$2.86 million to Eagle Services Limited, listed as a stockholder.
•$845,645 to Charlotte insurance executive and investor Cameron Harris, who is listed as a stockholder.


•$233,090 to Charlotte law firm Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein.
DesignLine’s board of directors approved the voluntary bankruptcy filing at a meeting Monday, according to the filing.
The company is being represented by Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough and Richards, Layton & Finger. GGG Partners was listed as the company’s financial adviser. GGG Partners Managing Partner Katie Goodman is named as chief restructuring officer in the petition.


The company is best known in Charlotte as the former employer of then-mayor Anthony Foxx, who is now the U.S. secretary of transportation. Charlotte Douglas International Airport also runs several of DesignLine's hybrid electric buses as shuttle transportation to CLT parking lots. In 2011, one of those buses caught fire.


The busmaker had started off 2013 with good news: Its compressed natural gas coach bus has passed all phases of the critical Altoona bus test. The Altoona Bus Research and Testing Center in Pennsylvania vets new-model vehicles for the Federal Transit Administration. Some transit agencies, including Charlotte’s, require the green light from Altoona before buying particular makes.