Flixbus bringing non-expensive bus rides to Serbia in 2017 – German company ready for ”the labyrinth” of Serbian legislature

Germany's Flixbus has been offering traveling by bus modeled after low-cost airline companies to passengers throughout Europe since 2013. This way, it has become possible to travel between numerous European cities at the price of only several euros.

The company has been present in Croatia as well since mid-June, and, according to the published data, around 140,000 passengers from that country have traveled by their buses.

Flixbus hopes for a similar success in Serbia as well. As they say in the company for eKapija, in addition to expanding the network of local and international lines in the states they already operate in, the plan is to also start working in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2017.

Dean Cebohin, head of business development at Flixbus for Central and East Europe, says that they are striving to transfer the Flixbus business model to Serbia and “offer a new level of bus travel quality and prices affordable to everybody and make cities throughout Europe available to people of Serbia”.

– Serbia is a very important country for us and we wish to include it into our network and provide passengers with all its advantages, but also to enable easier trips to Serbia, whether for purposes of tourism or business – Cebohin emphasizes and adds that their goal is to connect all European countries into a bus line network.

The company is a combination of a technological startup, e-store and traditional transportation company, and its success is a great example of the impact digitization can have on business in this area, which may not be so obvious at first sight.

(Andre Schwammlein, co-owner of Flixbus, and Dean Cebohin) The Flixbus team is responsible for designing the network, user support, quality management, marketing and sales, as well as for the ticket sale system, price management and business development, whereas the operating part of the business, i.e. taking care of passengers during the trip itself, is in charge of local, regional transporters.

Cebohin emphasizes that these are mostly small and medium family businesses with a tradition in bus transportation and that, by employing them, Flixbus is contributing to stepping up the economic growth in the countries it operates in.

Even though tickets can also be bought personally, on the spot, in all these countries, Flixbus offers the possibility of purchase through a mobile app, as well as ticket and passenger entry control through smartphone QR codes.

Still, it seems that the arrival of Flixbus to Serbia is not dependent solely on how well the citizens will accept their innovative platform. Another important factor is the German company's capability of finding its way through complicated legal procedures in Serbia.

More precisely, as the media wrote recently, each company looking to transport passengers internationally must file a request for establishing new lines and bringing schedules in line, and the Ministry of Transport is currently still dealing with requests filed by transporters back in 2014.

Furthermore, a foreign transporter can't operate without establishing a subcontractor's relation with local transporters, which should cover at least 50% of an established line under their own company's name, nor is it currently possible to sell bus tickets at flexible prices, as they need to be fixed and pre-approved by the ministry in charge.

Nevertheless, none of this has discouraged representatives of Flixbus.

Dean Cebohin says that the preparations for entering the Serbian market are in progress and adds that they are doing everything in their power to provide passengers form Serbia with “the kind of traveling experience they deserve” starting next year. The preparations entail technological, as well as legal aspects.

– It's true that the legislature is different from what Flixbus has encountered in other states. We're not saying it will be easy, but we don't believe it's impossible either. In any case, we will adjust the business model to the state's laws, but we will continue to provide the best quality-price relation to passengers – he explains and adds that Flixbus honors all laws of the country whose market it enters.

Wherever they've introduced their business model, they say in Flixbus, they've been accepted as a company which provides a higher level of quality in travel, an alternative to carsharing and carpooling, but also to air and railway transport.

What especially sets Flixbus aside from the competition is free Wi-Fi in vehicles, more room and outlets between seats, free baggage transport, as well as the possibility of canceling and switching trips up to 15 minutes before the departure.

Still, the German company's main asset are low prices and a large number of destinations its buses travel to. This international bus transporter has managed to establish a network of 100,000 daily bus lines between 900 destination in 20 European countries in slightly over three years, thanks to its innovative business model and technology.

M.V.

FlixBus

Ministarstvo građevinarstva, saobraćaja i infrastrukture Republike Srbije

FlixBus

Dean Cebohin

bus travel

low cost airlines

online ticket sale

e store

transportation companies

passenger bus transport

mobile app

QR codes

international passenger transport

bus tickets

carsharing

carpooling