Montreal, 2008-12-21
Voyageur Customer Service
265 Catherine St.
Ottawa, ON  K1R 7S5


     Madam, Sir,

     I have been traveling frequently between Montreal and Ottawa
recently (most weekends).  This weekend, Friday 2008-12-19, when
departing Montreal, there was a nominal security search, reminiscent of
the security theatre surrounding airline travel, for the first time in
my experience - meaning, about three and a half years of regular
travel, plus occasional trips before that.

     This is, first, grossly disrespectful of your passengers (whatever
happened to presumption of innocence?).  Second, it doesn't do what it
purports to do.  I noticed six separate ways in which it failed to
provide the security it appears to be intended to provide:

(1) The first screener took my word for which bag was to go in the
luggage compartment and which was to be carried on with me.  As far as
I could tell nobody checked that the bag I handed over to be placed in
the luggage compartment was the one I told the screener was to be.

(2) The screener did not perform an effective check of my carryon.  As
far as the inspection it was given is concerned, I could have had three
switchblades and a handgun in there.

(3) The second screener, who checked my person (with what I assume was
a metal-detector wand), did not do an effective job either.  He missed
the large handful of coins and substantial keyring in my pocket; I
believe he would have missed my Swiss Army knife if I had happened to
have it in my pocket.

(4) There was no effective security between the second screening and my
boarding the bus; there were plenty of opportunities for me to either
receive something from someone else or pick up something left earlier.

(5) We picked up more passengers, at Dorval airport and at the Kirkland
stop, and I saw no sign of even the slightest attempt at security at
either location.

(6) It assumes that only objects that look like weapons can serve as
weapons.  This is simply _wrong_; a laptop battery makes almost as
effective a bludgeon as a hammer, and a ballpoint pen makes a rather
nasty stabbing weapon, to name just the first two alternatives that
come to mind as unlikely to be barred, especially in practice.

These could, in principle, be corrected.  However, I do not believe
that, at a bus-ticket price-point, you can come close to even the
security provided by airports, which is itself thoroughly ineffectual -
TSA tiger-teams routinely get weapons past airport security screening
in the USA.  Furthermore, such screening should be eliminated, not
corrected; besides being pointless (because it is ineffectual), it is
insulting - this is Canada, not the USA; we do not need to be nannied.

                                                                     ../2

     In addition, on the return (Ottawa-to-Montreal) trip on
2008-12-21, while there was some physical infrastructure apparently
intended for such screening present, I saw no screening being done -
certainly neither my bags nor my person was examined as far as I could
tell.  While good in itself, this provides additional reason to think
that the screening that was done was completely pointless.

     I would pay a substantial price premium - at least a factor of
1.25 - to patronize a bus company that did not so disrespect its
passengers.  Since as far as I know there is no such alternative for
bus travel between Ottawa and Montreal, I will instead be investigating
other alternatives, from the train, to getting a driver's license and
renting cars for the trips, to simply moving to Ottawa.  Unless this
issue is fixed, you will quite likely lose, to one or another of the
various alternatives, a good repeat customer, from whom you have
grossed roughly $1000 per year for approximately the last three and a
half years (a FlexPass every three to four months).






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2010-06-30 addendum: Turned out Voyageur had been borged by Greyhound.
They responded to this only with a form-letter "we've noted your
concerns" ignore-o-gram and similar phone call.  I don't know whether
they've fixed anything since, because they did lose my business over
this (to the train) and I haven't had a convenient opportunity to look
into whether Greyhound is still doing stupid and ineffectual security
theatre - and haven't cared enough to bother doing so when it's not
particularly convenient.  I find it discouraging that the only
civilized public intercity transport remaining in this country is the
one with the fewest trips and fewest cities served.  I feel I'll have
to get a driver's license just to travel without being insulted for
having had the temerity to pay them to transport me.  Or perhaps I
should just move to Europe, where trains aren't the second-class
citizens they are in North America.