You may think that carpooling saves money and reduces air pollution, but motor coaches can do that and more for intercity travelling. 

Amongst the many reasons why we should choose a coach over carpooling are:

• Safety. Coaches are some of the safest vehicles on the road. The drivers adhere to high security standards and undergo specific training to ensure the safety of all passengers. Moreover, motor coach companies follow strict maintenance schedules to keep their vehicles in good condition.
• Environment-friendly. On average, motorcoaches use the least amount of energy and produce the lowest carbon dioxide emissions per passenger of most of the intercity transportation options, including carpooling, heavy train and air travel.
• Comfort. In a motorcoach, seats usually have the same size, space and comfort. Also, there are fewer surprises with their fixed routes, fixed stops and fixed-schedule service.
• Trusted systems. Motorcoach companies have reliable online booking and reservation systems to ensure secure payment transactions.

A car ride might be considered a “cheaper” option as compared with the intercity bus, but make sure to consider all the “costs” while doing your calculations, including the impact of having to leave earlier or the risk of arriving late at the destination, for example.

It is true that if pickup nearby your location is offered by the car owner, you could save money spent on auto, taxi or public transport to reach the bus station.

Also, assuming all fellow riders are friendly and well-behaved, you might get to make new friends while carpooling. However, not everyone is in need of “carpool buddies”.

Consider the fact that you might not be able to select your seat when ridesharing too. While the front seat next to the driver has maximum comfort, the other seats may lack many of the conveniences (if you happen to sit in the middle of the second row, for example). Comfort and convenience may also vary largely from ride to ride, depending on the car type, the driver and passenger’s behaviour and many other factors. 

Moreover, the platforms that connect car owners’ and guests often do not take responsibility for quality, reliability and safety. If things go wrong (if the car owner cancels a ride last minute or fellow passengers are rude, rash driving, not willing to drop off at a place of choice, etc.), it is left to customers and car owners to sort out these issues.

Dealing with preferences while carpooling might be difficult too: one person wants loud music, other wants to sleep; one person prefers AC to be turned high, while others feel it’s cold; one person wants to stop at a fast food, while others are vegetarians; one person asks the driver to go faster, but others get scared of the speed and prefer to go slow

Dealing with these situations can get tricky, as it is not possible to satisfy everyone.

Of course, it is ultimately up to you to choose the option that best suits you.

In any case, should you decide to take a motor coach powered with ONGOING next time you travel to another city, in addition to all the advantages mentioned above you’ll be all set to sit back, relax, and enjoy the best connectivity and digital entertainment onboard. 

What do we bring with us when we travel? In most cases, our smartphone comes on top of the list.

With the recent technological innovations, smartphones have become part of our lives, and so part of our travels.

GPS, games, music or simply calling, those small devices can do all things. Its ease of use and abundance of features makes it the perfect travel companion.

Smartphones could be the future of onboard entertainment. In fact, while many airline companies added individual seatback screens to their entertainment proposition, the motor coach industry didn’t follow their footsteps.

It can be explained by a number of reasons, the main one being the cost of onboard “entertainment screens” compared to the price passengers pay for the trip. That’s when ONGOING and smartphones come into light.

At ONGOING, we believe the concept BYOD “Bring Your Own Device” is a window to consider for onboard entertainment. Each passenger can access our service from the tip of their finger, on their smartphone, tablet or even their laptop.

Thus, bus and tour operators are sure to offer the perfect combination of digital entertainment and connectivity onboard, for a fraction of the cost.

ONGOING is the solution for onboard entertainment, guaranteeing the ultimate passenger experience through smartphones.

For many years airlines have relied on In-Flight Entertainment (IFE) to distract passengers during long hauls. Today, many of them are trying to implement In-Flight Connectivity (IFC) solutions.

There are some lessons to learn from the motorcoach Internet WiFi onboard experience.

A satellite telco operator recently stated that “airline demand for Wi-Fi Internet is now a necessity” (not a luxury) and that “inflight broadband is “revolutionizing” passengers’ expectations of the onboard experience”.

According to them, the “inflight Wi-Fi is more important than onboard entertainment” and “a large portion of passengers would pay for inflight Wi-Fi rather than use free onboard entertainment”.

While disagreeing with some of their views, we concur with one of their further statements: “overwhelmingly, passengers would expect the same levels of connectivity and access to online services whilst they are at 30,000 feet as they receive on the ground”.

If the idea is for the satellite Wi-Fi Internet to replace the in-flight media entertainment, a short calculation may illustrate the challenge the airlines will face to fulfill the passengers’ expectations.

Considering Netflix’s figures, watching movies or series uses about 1 GB of data per hour for each stream of standard definition video (up to 3 GB per hour for full HD).  Let’s take a look at some of the data plans currently offered on board by a well-known airline:

• [Fees in USD, per device]
• 30 min Plan － $4.95 *15 MB Limit
• 1hr Plan － $8.95 *30 MB Limit
• Full Flight Plan － $19.95 *100 MB Limit
• *Rates are time-based but fair-use volumes apply. When the maximum volume is reached, the session will be terminated.

What can you possibly do with 15 MB of data for 5 dollars? Well, you can watch a 2 min clip, or send a few e-mails with small-size attachments, or post one or two photos in your Facebook or Instagram … that’s about it.

For 20 dollars you might think you’re now “truly connected” and not need to worry for the full flight … until you reach your 100 MB limit!! And how long will it take to do that? Well, most smartphones nowadays can have a Wi-Fi throughput of 2 to 5 Mbps or roughly 0.25 to 0.6 MB per second, that’s about 25 to 60 MB per min … we let you do the rest of the math.

For many years, the motorcoach industry has been trying to provide Internet WiFi connectivity onboard as a value-added service to their passengers.

However, despite the fact that this service is free of charge, the user experience has not been to the level of the passengers’ expectations. This is mainly due to the fact that passengers associate the WiFi offering to the same Wi-Fi speed they could have at home or office.

It is not uncommon to read tweets and posts of upset passengers complaining about the poor Wi-Fi service offered by bus operators.

The on-board Wi-Fi system on most intercity buses is based on cellular connections where Web browsing is not particularly fast and video streaming is very hard to accomplish with poor signals outside urban areas.

Most motorcoach operators block access to sites and services requiring high-demanding Internet streaming bandwidth. The result is a service that is rarely appreciated by travellers.

At ONGOING, we believe the future of the onboard passenger experience will rely on the best mix of entertainment and connectivity.

But that’s not all, companies who would like to go even further will start “engaging” with their passengers with a truly personalized experience, providing passengers with the content they would appreciate and the connectivity services pertinent to them.

ONGOING is busy working on delivering these capabilities and more to its customers … stay tuned.

Image:CC BY-SA 2.0. Jetstar Airways: enjoying the in-flight entertainment system

In industrialized countries, motor vehicles represent 30 to 45% of total CO2 emissions.

Demand for travel has grown across all modes over the past 20 years with particularly strong growth in long distance journeys. Forecasts indicate that rising incomes and population will result in further growth.

On long-haul routes, the plane and the individual car are still the most energy-consuming (thus pollutants) means of transportation.

A single bus that replaces 40 cars on the road can save up to 70 000 liters of fuel and reduce by 170 tons the air pollution every year.

On a 500 km trip, a plane emits more than 240 kg of CO2 per passenger. A single passenger-driver car is also very polluting, emitting about 170 kg of CO2 for the same journey. A bus emits only about 50 kg of CO2 per passenger on a similar trip.

So, the next time you need to go to another city … think green, sit back, relax, and enjoy Ongoing Entertainment onboard an intercity bus!

Ever been sitting around wondering what to do?

Watching an original movie or series or listening to fresh music would be a nice way to get through a long wait, long trip or a long stay in the middle of nowhere.

With the latest generation of mobile devices capable of supporting high-resolution video (HD, 2K) and high-fidelity audio (320 kbps, 1411 kbps), we may think it is just a matter of getting our mobile devices connected to the Internet online to do this.

However, how many times have you given up while trying to watch a film or show using a shared Internet connection onboard a bus, train, or at a remote location?

Frustration comes quickly with a cumbersome authentication or network bottlenecks with many people trying to get access at the same time. When the Internet connection slows down, it is very difficult to determine whether the problems are due to bandwidth limitations, signal strength, or backhaul jams somewhere in the cellular or Wi-Fi network.

At the end, you might be tempted to use your own cellular data plan, but just be careful because all that high quality digital entertainment is heavy in terms of data consumption, and the experience could be less enjoyable when receiving a bill from your telecom operator!

Ongoing Entertainment aims to deliver an enjoyable experience to travelers and people waiting at idle spots by giving access to a variety of films, series, clips, games, music and podcast playlists, comic books, magazines, and more.

Easy and fast, connecting with your own smartphone or tablet.