Building on a decade-long partnership, the entire North American Greyhound Lines Inc. fleet was upgraded in 2020 with the Icomera X-Series wireless Internet connectivity gateway to significantly improve the passenger experience.
The technology by United Motorcoach Association member Icomera lets travelers enjoy Wi-Fi with faster browsing speeds and enhanced onboard entertainment options. As a result, Greyhound’s passengers can easily stream movies and popular TV shows, play games, and read bestselling eBooks and magazines.
The media content is delivered via Wi-Fi directly to passengers’ own smart devices, whether it’s smartphone, tablet, or laptop — so there is no need for seat-back screens.
Since the media is stored on board, passengers stream the content from the vehicle instead of over the Internet, which improves the speed of access, eases the load on the Internet bandwidth and reduces the cellular data usage costs associated with Passenger Wi-Fi.
“At a time when delivering onboard Internet-enabled services for passengers was still in an age of relative infancy, Greyhound outlined its commitment to acting as an industry innovator by commissioning Icomera to supply Passenger Wi-Fi for its fleet of vehicles,” said Ronnie Long, Greyhound’s Director of Onboard Products and Customer Experience.
“By 2020, Greyhound had laid the foundation for a ‘Digital Coach,’ upgrading its legacy hardware with Icomera’s next-generation X-Series platform. Now installed on all coaches, the Icomera X3 sets the stage for centralized connectivity, capable of hosting a range of virtual applications as part of a ‘one-box’ solution.”
Innovative Solutions Award
This successful partnership was recently spotlighted with an Innovative Solutions Award for Passenger Experience by Metro Magazine.
Now in their seventh year, the awards honor bus operators and their supplier partners who have implemented initiatives that helped them save money, run more efficiently, streamline operations, increase safety, improve customer satisfaction and increase ridership. The winners are featured in METRO’s November issue.
“This award validates the power of a partnership. Icomera’s solution meets the needs of a complex operator like Greyhound, and sets the stage for new programs that further improve the onboard experience,” Long said.
The Icomera solution is installed on all Greyhound coaches across the U.S., Mexico, and Canada.
5.5M Greyhound passengers
After a decade of partnership, Icomera and Greyhound just extended the long-standing relationship for an additional three years to completely fulfill Greyhound’s digital strategy.
The partnership is just one example of how Greyhound continues to be ahead of the curve in improving the passenger experience. It was one of the first North American transit operators to deploy an entertainment solution, an onboard passenger amenity that is now being adopted at an accelerated pace across the industry post-Covid.
Greyhound allows passengers to remain connected in transit, while the media portal provides an immersive entertainment experience for those seeking a more leisurely journey. In 2020 alone, Icomera enabled about 5.5 million passenger Wi-Fi sessions across the North American Greyhound bus fleet.
“Greyhound and Icomera are about to embark on a new evolution of the ‘Digital Coach,’ extracting new value to enhance the overall return on investment,” said Gabriel Lopez-Bernal, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Icomera. “With the ‘Digital Coach’ footprint in play, Greyhound is leveraging the flexibility of the GoView platform to add a new revenue stream from programmatic advertising partners.”
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