Shari Veleba, Ohio Woman, Outraged After Ride On Floor Of Overcrowded Greyhound Bus

An Ohio woman is outraged after being told to sit on the floor of an overcrowded Greyhound bus, despite having paid full price for her ticket.

Shari Veleba told the Columbus Dispatch that she and other passengers were asked to have a seat on the floor of the oversold bus during its 80-mile route from Cambridge, Ohio, to Columbus. Riding in the aisles is against Greyhound policy and federal regulations.

“We were packed in the aisle like sardines,” Veleba, a 53-year-old woman with epilepsy, told the newspaper, adding that the floors were "filthy."

Greyhound bus seating is first-come, first serve. Veleba claims the bus driver at first wouldn't let oversold passengers onto the bus, instead offering them an phone number to call, but later allowed five or six additional passengers to sit on the floor.

Visit the Columbus Dispatch for more on the story.

Consumer reviews on different websites indicate that passengers have been asked to sit on the floor of Greyhound buses before.

Earlier this year, another Ohio woman claimed that a driver asked her and her daughter to "either sit on the floor in the middle of the rows or stand next to the bathroom at the back of the bus" when there were no seats available on an interstate trip.

According to a 2011 DePaul University study, intercity bus travel is the fastest growing mode of transportation in the United States.

In recent years, carriers such as Megabus and BoltBus, whose parent companies are Coach U.S.A. and Greyhound, respectively, have clashed over the operation of new routes in the northeast. BoltBus, which is operated jointly in the northeastern U.S. by Greyhound and Peter Pan, has been criticized by Megabus as anticompetitive, according to Bloomberg News.

A 1997 agreement between Greyhound and Peter Pan to pool resources was intended to help alleviate overcrowding on intercity lines, according to a 2010 Megabus petition to the Surface Transportation Board, a federal regulatory commission. In its petition, Megabus claims that since BoltBus wasn't sanctioned under that agreement, its partners should be forced to run separate services in the regions.