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I ride with FlixBus several times a year within Germany to visit family. It gets you where you're going, on time, clean buses. There seems to be a lot of comp

I ride with FlixBus several times a year within Germany to visit family. It gets you where you're going, on time, clean buses. There seems to be a lot of competition for buses in Germany, at least in Berlin, so maybe that pushes quality up. I wish them luck.

usrusr 9y ago
Scheduled inter-city buses were not allowed in Germany until 2013, it's hardly surprising that only four years later, everything is still somewhat new and shiny. I'd be careful to draw long term conclusions.
- eru 9y ago
  To be more precise, they were not outright forbidden: a Nazi era law just gave Deutsche Bahn a veto on all bus routes. (If memory serves right.) Berlin was a special case before that, because of cold war stuff.
Jdam 9y ago
> There seems to be a lot of competition for buses in Germany Flixbus market share was 90% in January, read just the other day that it raised to 93% recently. https://www.statista.com/topics/3361/long-distance-bus-market-in-germany/ https://www.statista.com/topics/3361/long-distance-bus-marke...
- krrrh 9y ago
  Flixbus bought MeinFernBus a couple of years ago, followed by the Postbus passenger service, which was a major consolidation of the market. I'm not sure if the prices have gone up much in the last year despite the drop in bus competition. I always had the impression that the inter-city buses were competing pretty hard against non-consumption, and Mitfahrgelegenheit services like BlaBlaCar. There were a lot of highspeed 1:40 trips between Berlin and Hamburg that simply weren't happening on Deutsche Bahn for 60-110€ but made sense as 3 hour trips for 9-20€. Bus liberalization also seemed to result in DB introducing more slow trains that could compete on price on popular routes. Market liberalization has been a big mobility win for the young and less wealthy.
  - plextoria 9y ago
    > Flixbus bought MeinFernBus a couple of years ago It's a common misconception. More precisely, FlixBus merged with MeinFernBus. At the time MFB had the bigger share of the market. FlixBus was chosen as a name mainly because it sounds better to foreigners.
    - germanier 9y ago
      Although it was publicly branded as a merger of equals it was pretty clear that Flixbus is the one who took over the other. Just after the merger, management was almost completely from Flixbus (the MFB founders even left completely soon after) and operation moved to their Munich Office immediately.
  - NickHoff 9y ago
    Yup, Berlin-Hamburg was the route I took most often.

usrusr 9y ago

Scheduled inter-city buses were not allowed in Germany until 2013, it's hardly surprising that only four years later, everything is still somewhat new and shiny. I'd be careful to draw long term conclusions.

eru 9y ago
To be more precise, they were not outright forbidden: a Nazi era law just gave Deutsche Bahn a veto on all bus routes. (If memory serves right.) Berlin was a special case before that, because of cold war stuff.

Jdam 9y ago

> There seems to be a lot of competition for buses in Germany Flixbus market share was 90% in January, read just the other day that it raised to 93% recently. https://www.statista.com/topics/3361/long-distance-bus-market-in-germany/ https://www.statista.com/topics/3361/long-distance-bus-marke...

krrrh 9y ago
Flixbus bought MeinFernBus a couple of years ago, followed by the Postbus passenger service, which was a major consolidation of the market. I'm not sure if the prices have gone up much in the last year despite the drop in bus competition. I always had the impression that the inter-city buses were competing pretty hard against non-consumption, and Mitfahrgelegenheit services like BlaBlaCar. There were a lot of highspeed 1:40 trips between Berlin and Hamburg that simply weren't happening on Deutsche Bahn for 60-110€ but made sense as 3 hour trips for 9-20€. Bus liberalization also seemed to result in DB introducing more slow trains that could compete on price on popular routes. Market liberalization has been a big mobility win for the young and less wealthy.
- plextoria 9y ago
  > Flixbus bought MeinFernBus a couple of years ago It's a common misconception. More precisely, FlixBus merged with MeinFernBus. At the time MFB had the bigger share of the market. FlixBus was chosen as a name mainly because it sounds better to foreigners.
  - germanier 9y ago
    Although it was publicly branded as a merger of equals it was pretty clear that Flixbus is the one who took over the other. Just after the merger, management was almost completely from Flixbus (the MFB founders even left completely soon after) and operation moved to their Munich Office immediately.
- NickHoff 9y ago
  Yup, Berlin-Hamburg was the route I took most often.