Access to Over-the-Road Buses for Persons With Disabilities Page: 58
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58 Over-the-Road Bus Access
bus-mile. This may be due to the fact that some
OTRBs on freed-route service generate income
from package express.
These revenue estimates suggest that although
freed-route ridership is shrinking, it is the only
service capable of paying higher operating costs.
For charters and tours to be profitable, operating
costs must be lower on a bus-mile basis. This may
be the reason why a number of the unionized
fins, which pay higher wages, such as Grey-
hound Lines, Jefferson Lines, and Carolina Coach,
have substantially reduced their charter and tour
operations, focusing instead on their fixed
routes. 38The large increase in the number of
companies offering charter and tour services has
also increased competition, severely limiting the
ability of some higher cost firms to compete in
this market.
Ridership
Little nonproprietary information about charter
and tour passengers is available. A 1986 market
research effort to identify the characteristics of
the customers of one particular firm showed that
bus tour patrons have a median age of 60, and take
an average of nearly five 1-day vacation trips per
year, 4.1 overnight or weekend vacation trips, and
2.3 extended vacation trips annually. 39 They
travel primarily to socialize, attend sporting or
cultural events, and go sightseeing; have a house-
hold income of over $34,000 (1985 dollars, over
$47,000 in 1991 dollars), and an average auto
ownership of 1.8 autos per household; prefer
package tours and economy vacations and are
relatively averse to planning their own vacations;
are more likely to be female; and prefer group
travel to travel on their own. Most groups contain0G
Many OTRB companies offer both fixed-route and
charter and tour service. These buses are part of such
a mixed fleet.
sizable numbers of widows or widowers. Studies
undertaken by the National Tour Association, Inc.
show that the average tour patrons are well-
educated, middle to upper middle-level income
seniors living in metropolitan areas, with no
children residing at home.0 One tour operator,
with tours ranging from 1 to 30 days, describes
the day-tripper as typically less affluent than
those taking much longer tours.41
The primary market for escorted bus retail
tours includes persons ages 50 and above, a group
totaling about one-quarter of this country's popu-
lation.42 The American bus tour industry gener-
ated $13.8 billion worth of escorted tour business
in 1990, carrying more than 60 million passengers
on more than 1.5 million trips. Sixty percent of
these passengers were over the age of 64.4
From this limited statistical information, it can
be inferred that the median income of tour patrons
is likely to be much higher than that of fixed-route
passengers. However, both tour and fixed-route38 Some Class I firms have been able to develop tour operations into a major revenue provider despite higher Cost structures.
39 Lawrence F. Cunningham, "Profiling Tour Patrons and Non-Patrons in Intercity Bus Passenger Markets,' paper presented at the Annual
Meeting of the Transportation Research Board, Washington DC, January 1986.
4o National Tour Association, "NTA Today," newsletter, 1991, pp. 7-9.
41 S. Burkett Milner, vice president/general manager, Capital Tours, Inc., personal communication, June 4,1992.
42 National Tour Association, op. cit., footnote 40, pp. 79.
43 James Santini, Washington, DC Representative, National Tour Association personal communication, March 1992.fmmm,_
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United States. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment. Access to Over-the-Road Buses for Persons With Disabilities, report, May 1993; [Washington D.C.]. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc40036/m1/64/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.