Fierce competition among highway bus services

In Japan, the main transport for a long distance journey used to be airplanes or bullet trains. However, now becoming more popular is highway buses. The reasons are that they are “cheap” and “luxurious”.

Of course, bus trips should be cheap; but now we have some bus companies offering ridiculously cheap fares. For example, the trip between Tokyo and Osaka, a customary discounted one way ticket costs JPY 12000～JPY 13000 by bullet train but the cheapest bus fare is an incredible JPY 3400!! The bus is a standard type with 4 seats in a row and no toilet on it. If you want a reclining chair or a toilet on the bus, you can upgrade your ticket for only JPY 500. On the other hand, there is an auxiliary seat option and you can use the service for JPY 2100.

So if you use this service, it will be a lot cheaper than using bullet train if you use it for a round trip. If you use an overnight one, you can travel while you are asleep and you will not waste your time. For bullet trains and airplanes, you have to think about the time to get to the nearest station or airport and if you want to get to the destination early in the morning, you will have to get up even earlier but even if you get up early, because of the time table, you can only get to Osaka at 8:30am. If you use a night bus, you can get to Osaka at 7:00 in the morning. You can sleep on the bus and Voila! You get there at the usual wake-up time. This is the reason for their popularity.

Now the buses are not just competing in price, they are making their service more comfortable. One of the bus companies uses a bus with large seats (big enough to put 2 people in each). You can also receive terrestrial digital media broadcasting and the one-way ticket is JPY 9900. Another bus company has luxury seats, a TV and a DVD player, outlets for computers and even wireless LAN on the bus and their one-way ticket costs JPY 11000, almost the same as a bullet train ticket.

The reason for this fierce competition among bus companies is the change in the road transport law in 2002. For route buses, bus companies have to use their own buses and employees but if it is a long distance tour bus, the company who organises the tour and the company who actually owns the bus can be different. A travel agent can decide how many buses they want to hire, depending on the number of passengers; so they can cut unnecessary cost and lower the fares. Thus, the tour bus industry expanded their business largely within a short time.

Especially, when the oil price went up extremely last year, more people started using buses after getting rid of their own cars. So with more people wanting to use buses, the competition among bus companies is getting fierce by lowering fares and increasing quality.

Japan’s economy is not getting better and even if it gets a bit better, it does not always means working people would end up with more cash in hand. I think that we will see more of these type of tour buses as long as people are looking to cut costs or a bit of luxury.

So if you have a chance to come to Japan, please try one of the highway buses.


★ Japanese used car stock : http://jpctrade.com/stock/index.html
★ JPCTRADE Home page : http://jpctrade.com/
★ JPCTRADE Blog : http://jpctrade.blogspot.com/

(Editor)
JPC TRADE CO.,LTD.
3B YS-Building, 1-2-2 Botan, Koto-ku, Tokyo, Japan
Japan Used Motor Vehicle Exporters Association (JUMVEA)
TEL : +81-3-5245-7731
FAX : +81-3-3643-4955