Blablacar Bus VP: -A Waymo will never give you the long-distance ride you need

How Blablacar went from Carpooling to also include Coaches

Lars: BlaBlaCar started as a carpooling platform connecting drivers and passengers. How did it evolve into a platform that also operates long-distance coaches?

Aurélien: When BlaBlaCar was created almost twenty years ago, coaches barely existed in Europe. The market was heavily regulated to protect trains. Only after the 2009 EU directive to liberalize intercity bus transport did coaches start emerging as a viable mode.

When we began scaling carpooling, we noticed coaches entering the same long-distance routes: Paris–Lyon, Amsterdam–Brussels, and so on. That created competition, but it also made us realize something important: people don’t think in modes, they think in needs. They want to get from A to B affordably and conveniently. So we decided to go multimodal and integrate other transport options into the platform.

We chose buses over trains for two reasons. First, buses exist everywhere, especially in markets like India and Brazil, where trains are rare. Second, the price point for coaches is closer to carpooling than trains. It made more sense from both a consumer and scaling perspective.

How Blablacar built a Multimodal Platform

Lars: Was this multimodal shift always part of BlaBlaCar’s strategy?

Aurélien: Not initially. Our founder, Frédéric Mazzella, just wanted to make unused car seats available. But once carpooling became a mass-market product, it was obvious that offering only one mode limited us. Look at other C2C platforms: Airbnb moved beyond rooms; Vinted moved beyond clothes; Uber went from rides to food. Multimodality is a natural evolution in consumer services.

We made two key acquisitions in 2018: OuiBus in France and Busfor in Eastern Europe, and fully integrated them by 2019. That’s when BlaBlaCar became multimodal.

How Blablacar reinvented the Coach Business with their SNCF acquisition

Lars: OuiBus was a traditional operator under SNCF, and was losing money. What did you have to change to make it work under BlaBlaCar?

Aurélien: OuiBus was losing around 30 million euros per year when we took over: 80 million in revenue and 110 million in costs. We had to rethink the entire model.

We did three big things:

1. Shifted to an asset-light model. We don’t own buses or employ drivers. We partner with SMEs who own the vehicles and operate routes under our network.
   
   

2. Adapted supply to demand. OuiBus had a “train mindset”: running constant frequencies to amortize assets. We matched supply dynamically to demand, like an FMCG company would. On a high-demand Sunday, we can operate eight times more buses than on a low-demand Tuesday.
   
   

3. Implemented dynamic pricing. Borrowing from airlines and hotels, we introduced flexible pricing based on demand and seasonality.

In a few years, we turned the business from negative EBIT of 30 million to roughly a 10% margin.

How Blablacar has included Trains in their offering

Lars: You recently launched train ticket distribution. How did that come about?

Aurélien: It’s the natural next step. We started distributing trains in Spain in 2024, followed by France. Spain was easier technically, as France’s rail distribution system is complex.

Trains complete the picture for us. With carpooling, coaches, and trains, we’re the only land-transport platform that can offer all three in one place. We don’t push one mode over another: our mission is to offer choice. Passengers decide based on price, time, and convenience.

Financially, distributing train tickets isn’t profitable yet. The access fees are high, and the system favors incumbents that sell large volumes. For newcomers like us, the same fee structures make it hard to earn margins. Still, we see it as an investment toward a sustainable multimodal platform.

Blablacar Cross-Selling and Customer Behavior

Lars: When I spoke to FREENOW a while back, they said one of the reasons they had to sell transit tickets is the cross-selling and user acquisition effects. Have you seen customer synergies between the modes?

Aurélien: Yes, around 45% of users who book a train also book a carpooling or bus trip with us later. Cross-selling is real, but we don’t want it to be the only thing that keeps the model afloat. Each mode should stand on its own economically.

We’re also advocating, along with companies like Kombo and Trainline, for fairer rules that allow new distributors to earn a reasonable margin. The market needs to be sustainable for everyone, not just incumbents.

The Policy Blind Spot around Coaches

Lars: When politicians and planners talk about sustainable transport, trains and local public transport dominate the agenda. Coaches rarely get mentioned. Why do you think that is?

Aurélien: Because in Europe, intercity coaches are still new, barely a decade old, and they’re mostly private. Policymakers still see them as peripheral, not as part of the public system.

But coaches play a vital role. They connect areas that trains don’t reach, offer affordable travel, and reduce car dependency. In France, 70% of our bus routes don’t go through Paris, unlike the train network. Coaches are essential for regional connectivity and decarbonization.

Lars: What is the missing link? 

Aurélien: What’s missing is integration, both digitally and physically. Regulations, passenger rights, and compensation differ wildly between modes. A delayed train gets compensation after one hour, a bus after two, an airline after three, why? No logic.

Then there’s the physical side: bus stations need to be connected to other transport hubs. If you build a great bus terminal in the suburbs with no transit links, no one will use it. You’ll just drive people back to private cars and we won’t reach the emissions goals we’ve set for transport.

That’s why I often say: we have the “coach Macron” but not the “station Macron.” Liberalization happened, but city planning didn’t follow. 

The way ahead for Blablacar

Lars: So multimodality is key to decarbonizing transport?

Aurélien: Absolutely. Transport accounts for a third of CO₂ emissions in France and is the only sector that hasn’t reduced its emissions in the past 15 years. The only realistic solution is multimodality, combining modes efficiently. A Waymo will never give you the long-distance ride you need. 

Digital integration will help people understand and book these combinations easily, but physical integration: stations, hubs, connections, is where cities need to act. If coaches aren’t part of city planning, it’s a lose-lose for everyone. 

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