A fledgling bus company is working to get a route between Prince George and Langley on the road.
Merritt Shuttle Bus Services Ltd. is among a half-dozen applicants to have won Passenger Transportation Board permission to run long-haul services across B.C. through an expedited process as Greyhound Canada pulls out of Western Canada at the end of the month.
With the go-ahead granted Friday, MSBS co-owner Gene Field said he and his partner and their spouses are working quickly to get everything in place by November 21, the date company must have at least two buses on the road under the PTB's terms and conditions.
The company won permission to run eight 22-passenger shuttle-sized buses along four routes centred on Merritt but also serving Prince George, Langley, Kamloops and Kelowna. Frequency of service along those routes must be at least three round trips a week.
MSBS also won permission to run four 48-passenger buses twice a day between the Highland Valley Copper Mine and Merritt and Kamloops.
Field said he expects the inter-community services to get going first because there is a deadline on an offer he has made to purchase the shuttle buses for those routes while he has more time to purchase the school buses the company will use to serve the routes to the mine.
The service to Langley would be via Spences Bridge, meaning it will take a full day to make the trip but customers will pay a significantly lower fare than Greyhound charged, said Field, although exact price points are still to be worked out.
An online reservation system with schedules must be up and running by November 7 to enable advance bookings.
Field said he and his partners want to make a decent living from their venture but not much more.
"We're also very religious and we kind of said to God, we're not doing this to make money, we're doing this to provide a service and we know that because of that, what you put out in the universe comes back 10-fold," he said.
Neither Field, who is the operations director, nor partner David Brule, who is the marketing director, have previous experience in operating bus services. Their backgrounds include experience in the military, security and retailing.
But Field said they will be hiring drivers with experience in trucking and bus driving and will be paying them as well as Greyhound was paying. In a licence application decision, PTB found Field and Brule have the "requisite knowledge and transferable skills and experience" to capably manage the venture.
Between BC Bus North, through which Pacific Western provides service across northern B.C. under a one-year contract with the provincial government, and the six new licencees, Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Claire Trevena said private operators now cover 83 per cent of the routes Greyhound served.
She said the PTB is still welcoming applications for eight routes including Kamloops-Valemount, Dawson Creek-B.C./Alberta border, Valemount-B.C./Alberta border and Fort Nelson-Yukon/B.C. border.
