The Albany Gazette - Rally OurBus Forecasts Record Bus Travel for Thanksgiving

More than 55 million people traveled for Thanksgiving in 2023, creating peak traffic and widespread delays on roads and in the air. RallyOurBus, the creators of on-demand bus travel, reports another surge in demand for Thanksgiving 2024 from travelers seeking affordable, hassle-free alternative ways home for the holiday, and its transportation crowdsourcing platform has created multiple new bus routes in response.

Rally OurBus provides crowdsourced bus trips via a social media-style feature of its platform, allowing people "upvote trips" to show interest in new routes and schedule times. This first-of-its-kind transportation crowdsourcing has led the company to develop multiple new routes, many of them new for Thanksgiving 2024.

OurBus, which merged with Rally in 2021, provides scheduled intercity travel and is the country's largest provider of college-break transportation. It offers more than 100 crowdsourced routes at 35 colleges and universities that connect students between campus, airports, and hometowns.

Rally OurBus forecasts that it will use more than 600 buses to transport its customers on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, serving approximately 36,000 passengers on that day alone. Some schedules are doubled, tripled - and in some cases quadrupled - on OurBus intercity routes. The platform's upvoting capability makes these crowdsourced bus trips possible.

"It used to be that travelers had to show up whenever the bus schedule said they had to and could only go to large - but often inconvenient - bus station hubs," Rally cofounder Numaan Akram said. "With our crowdsourcing technology, the public is telling us where and when the bus should go."

Rally OurBus can scale capacity to meet customer needs because of its asset-light model that draws on charter bus companies nationwide. Airlines and railroads, with their fixed fleets, personnel and infrastructure (rails and airport gates) lack that scaling capability.

Rally OurBus provides not only flexibility and affordability but stress-free travel in comfort. Buses feature comfortable seating, restrooms, TV/DVD systems and complimentary Wi-Fi. They also have abundant stored and carry-on luggage capacity at no added cost.

Rally OurBus is Mass Mobility as a Service, transforming how people travel with bus schedules created by considering and meeting user demands. For more information, please visit Rally's website at https://rally.co and OurBus at https://ourbus.com.

About Rally

Rally is a bus rideshare company with a platform that creates on-demand bus trips across many U.S. cities, Canada, and other countries. Riders generate a trip or choose from one of the many crowdsourced trips. Whether for a concert, a sporting event or a festival, Rally unites passionate people, making the journey part of the event-day experience.

OurBus uses AI to create regularly scheduled intercity services. It has 150 stops in the Northeast United States, with stops in Canada, and plans to expand internationally. The company competes with legacy incumbent bus companies on these routes by applying technology and business innovations to regional transportation.

Rally OurBus is disrupting the bus industry, bringing new business to local bus companies, and promoting a greener, safer form of travel. Its Mass Mobility as a Service combines technology and business model innovations in the bus industry. Rally OurBus is disrupting the mode of transportation that moves more people than any other. Its new intercity routes for regional transport and crowdfunding address surge demand travel by converting private car users to shared bus riders.

Contact Information

Buse Kayar
[email protected]

SOURCE: Rally

(J.Torres--TAG)