How Greyhound Buses Are Embracing the Internet of Things

Greyhound Lines, Inc, is a large inter city bus common carrier that serves over 3.800 destinations across the United States, Canada and Mexico. It is the largest inter city bus transportation company in the United States and it is rapidly driving towards the Internet of Things. Currently they are undergoing a dramatic business transformation, embracing the latest technologies to improve efficiency and safety of the company.

Two years ago they started a five-year transformation program to completely change the organization and prepare it for the digital era. They are currently in year 2 and this covers the whole spectrum of IT, which includes implementing the busses with a wide range of sensors and new mobile applications. Sensors will among other measure engine performance, break performance and how the driver performance.

Traditionally, all those sensors required special devices to get the data, which in addition belonged to the manufacturer of the engine. With APIs, Greyhound Lines obtains a lot more information on how the bus driver is driving and regarding the safety of the passengers. This completely changes the game for the company.

The main aspect that they focus on is safety, as it is core number one value at Greyhound Lines. This means that the Internet of Things is applied specifically in that area. But of course also costs reduction is a driver for moving towards the Internet of Things. Thanks to the different sensors in the engines, they are for example better capable of understanding what needs to be fixed when the bus is taken out of schedule for maintenance. Thanks to the insights derived from this, they were able to reduce idling times by 5%, thereby saving a lot of money on buses that cannot be used.

But Greyhound Lines not only focuses on the maintenance aspect of the Internet of Things. With the different mobile apps they are developing, they are making it possible for passengers to track the buses and know the real-time departure and arrival times of their buses. Thereby significantly improving the services for their customers.

As can be seen from this example, the Internet of Things will affect any company in any industry and especially the transportation industry, as I already showed before with the UPS best practice. How do you expect the Internet of Things to affect different industries? Join me in a discussion below with some examples that you know.