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You should start your own bus company — and we’re going to help you.

I’ve learned an enormous amount about running a transportation company in the last decade -- and now I want to share all of that knowledge with you so you can start your own bus company too. We built a very special set of tools to do this and we’re calling it Farebox: Farebox.io

When I started The Detroit Bus Company about 10 years ago I had no idea what I was doing. We just had this big dream of running a bus company to get people where they needed to go. We kept track of all of our reservations on one big, messy Google Calendar. We had color codes for the payment status of a reservation, the name of the driver in the title, and that was about it.

Here’s one of our actual schedules I saved from July 2012:

This method presented so many problems. If something wasn’t added to the calendar properly the bus wouldn’t show up and the group would be understandably furious. Or, if we mismanaged the color coding, we’d miss out on getting paid for a run. Scheduling drivers this way was a total mess too.

We tried every solution under the sun. There’s lots of “transportation company software” out there but nothing specifically for bus companies. It’s a lot of detail to track! No solution we found kept all of the details straight, kept everyone involved informed, and managed communication with our customers. We wanted one solution to handle all of this so we could run a modern company.

During the pandemic it gave us some time to think about how we might solve this problem for good. We realized that if we wanted something like this we’d just have to build it ourselves.

Meet Farebox. Farebox is cloud-based bus company management software we’ve built that allows you to start and run your own bus company just like DBC.

You might be thinking to yourself, “Andy, why are you trying to create competition for your own bus company -- are you crazy??” The answer is, “Maybe.” I started DBC so we could fill transit gaps in Detroit but we’re not going to be able to do this all on our own. It’s going to take dozens, maybe hundreds of bus companies to provide transportation for all the different needs out there.

Plus, transportation is a major problem in cities around the world. We can’t be everywhere, so we want to enable entrepreneurs to do what they do best and solve this problem. Bus companies are an inherently local solution. No giant company should eat the world.

Odds are you’re probably not going to start a bus company yourself, but maybe. It’s possible you know someone in your life who would be interested in starting one -- or you know of a school, church, or other organization that could manage their bus fleet better. Farebox works great for for-profit and non-profit businesses alike.

Either way, Farebox is our little love letter out into the world and I hope it helps someone achieve their dream. Try it for free with no obligation at farebox.io today.

Try Farebox For Free

Thank you — and good luck!

Andy DidorosiFounder, The Detroit Bus Company

PS: If you’re starting a bus company I’ll personally answer any questions you might have within the limits of my schedule. You can email me at [email protected] and I’ll get back to you.

PPS: This is the only email you’ll receive about Farebox. We’ll be back to your regularly-scheduled Detroit Bus deals for the next issue. Pinky promise.

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