IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/halshs-02374703.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Long Distance Coach Services in France and Germany: the new European competition between Flixbus and BlaBlaBus

Author

Listed:
  • Laurent Guihéry

    (MRTE - Laboratoire Mobilités, Réseaux, Territoires, Environnements - UCP - Université de Cergy Pontoise - Université Paris-Seine)

Abstract

Long distance passenger mobility is experiencing a huge structural change in France and Germany. Based on Internet technology and customer-oriented services, new entrants in interurban coach services are diversifying the options for the travelers and have been very successful. This market has been deregulated in 2013 in Germany and 2015 in France. New actors are not only challenging rail operators in France and Germany, but also BlaBlaCar, the world leader in ridesharing and sometimes low cost airlines. Long distance coach players have also experienced in 2019 a concentration of actors: Flixbus, the leader with a market share in Germany of 95% has bought the French outsider Eurolines/Isilines. Eurolines/Isilines (Transdev Group) was the dominant operator before deregulation but had not succeeded to become a leader. Ouibus, which is a subsidiary of SNCF-the challenger of Flixbus in France, experienced high losses in operating, which was backed by public fund and debt, was sold to BlaBlaCar. Ouibus changed its name in BlaBlaBus - and is now becoming the French challenger in coach and ride-sharing operation. Flixbus and BlaBlaBus are now moving on the European market: the aim of our paper is to analyze the development strategies of these coach services leaders in France and Germany in a European perspective. What will be the balance? Which new services will emerge?

Suggested Citation

  • Laurent Guihéry, 2019. "Long Distance Coach Services in France and Germany: the new European competition between Flixbus and BlaBlaBus," Post-Print halshs-02374703, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-02374703
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-02374703
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-02374703/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Burgdorf, Christian & Eisenkopf, Alexander & Knorr, Andreas, 2018. "User acceptance of long distance bus services in Germany," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 270-283.
    2. Crozet, Yves & Guihéry, Laurent, 2018. "Deregulation of long distance coach services in France," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 284-289.
    3. Yves Crozet & Laurent Guihéry, 2018. "Deregulation of long distance coach services in France," Post-Print halshs-01856648, HAL.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Reynolds, Tim & White, Peter, 2022. "Forty years’ experience of deregulated express coach services in Britain," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    2. Yeung, Timothy Yu-Cheong & Zhu, Dianzhuo, 2022. "Intercity ridesharing to the rescue: Capacity flexibility and price stability of BlaBlaCar during the 2018 French railway strike," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 270-290.
    3. Thierry Blayac & Patrice Bougette, 2023. "What can be Expected from Mergers After Deregulation? The Case of the Long-Distance Bus Industry in France," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 62(1), pages 63-97, February.
    4. Feriél Adjeroud & Thierry Blayac, 2018. "Bus and carpooling travel time perceptions by users: what about the values of travel time for long-distance trips in France? [Perception du temps de transport par les usagers de l’autocar et du cov," Post-Print hal-02099824, HAL.
    5. Beria, Paolo & Bertolin, Alberto, 2019. "Evolving long-distance passenger services. Market concentration, fares and specialisation patterns in Italy," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 77-92.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Long distance coaches; France; Germany; Flixbus; Blablabus; Competition;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-02374703. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.