Since the end of March, the green Flixbus buses have been rolling again on the motorways. Since then, long-distance bus travel has been possible again with the market leader in Germany. And now BlaBlaBus is also returning. However, under a new name. Because from now on, BlaBlaBus is called like the core brand: BlaBlaCar – even if buses are actually not cars. With immediate effect, BlaBlaCar wants to compete with the larger long-distance bus company Flixbus for bus travel. Because since Thursday (June 10th) the first long-distance buses from BlaBlaCar are back on tour.
There is more demand for travel again
Reason for the restart: After many months of the corona pandemic and finally noticeably falling incidence numbers, the desire to travel in Germany is back. At the beginning of May, BlaBlaCar in Germany reported a 65 percent increase in booked car pools via its own core offer within a week. The revival of the ride-sharing offer makes it clear that people want to travel again and that the bus connections that were discontinued in the wake of the Corona crisis are in greater demand again.
In the future, BlaBlaCar plans to run its buses between the highly sought-after cities of Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Cologne, Dresden and Frankfurt, among other things. For example, BlaBlaCar is currently using 134 instead of 70 buses in 2019 on the route between Hamburg and Berlin. Between Berlin and Munich there are 75 instead of 30. Cities such as Düsseldorf, Leipzig, Nuremberg, Hanover and Bremen are also included in the new BlaBlaCar timetable. Traveling abroad, for example to Paris and Amsterdam, is possible. And the expansion continues. In the next 1 1/2 years, the size of the bus network in Germany is expected to double from 100 to 200 intercity connections. Expansion into Austria and Switzerland is also being considered.
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It is noticeable that many larger cities are still missing from the new BlaBlaCar network. Even those in which the potential BlaBlaCar customers can be found in the form of students. For example Mainz in Rhineland-Palatinate or Essen, Dortmund and Münster in North Rhine-Westphalia. The BlaBlaCar manager Sven Oldengott, who is responsible for the network, tells inside digital: “Of course, we focus on the Ruhr area in particular, but we have to keep an eye on travel flows and actual travel needs. It doesn’t help anyone if we integrate many cities into our network, but end up with empty buses. ”
In other words: in cities that are still missing from the BlaBlaCar network, the demand is not (yet) great enough. Of course, you can still use the BlaBlaCar carpooling service here. And of course at BlaBlaCar the planning for further bus connections with other cities connected to the network is already in full swing. This should also include new night lines.
At the start there is a discount on the tickets
To ensure that the BlaBlaCar bus offer is well booked right from the start, the organizers have decided to start a special campaign. There is a discount of 20 percent on all journeys until July 1st. Trips between Berlin and Hamburg are so priced from 3.99 euros possible per route, between Frankfurt and Munich from 5.99 euros, between Berlin and Dresden from 7.99. Connections between Paris and Frankfurt are somewhat more expensive from 14.99 euros and between Cologne and Munich from 15.99 euros. There are tickets among other things via the BlaBlaCar homepage.
A total of 22 domestic and seven travel destinations abroad can be booked for the restart of BlaBlaCar on the long-distance bus market. According to the operators, this covers 100 of the country’s most important city connections. “BlaBlaCar’s strategy is to have a complementary offer: buses on the main axis and carpooling on the rest of the territory,” says BlaBlaCar manager Oldengott.
A comprehensive hygiene concept applies to all journeys with BlaBlaCar buses. Passengers are obliged to wear an FFP2 mask when getting on and off and during the entire journey. The drivers are also required to wear an FFP2 mask if they are in direct contact with the passengers. As a further measure, the BlaBlaCar buses are disinfected daily, hand disinfectant is available for all travelers and modern standard filter systems ensure a supply of fresh air on the journey.
