Bus failed to pick us up; must the operator refund our taxi fare?

Question

I bought a ticket for the Vienna Erdberg to Bratislava Airport section of a bus route. The bus was on time but failed to stop at Vienna Erdberg—incredibly, it just whizzed past me and some 15 other passengers standing patiently at the posted departure platform.

According to what we could find about EU bus passenger rights, the bus operator was obliged to re-route us to our final destination "under comparable conditions at no extra cost and at the earliest opportunity". None of us was able to get in touch with the bus operator at the time to ask about this (they don't list a phone number on their website, and the bus station itself was unstaffed due to it being a public holiday). We hurriedly searched for alternative connections and found two: the first option was to take the metro to a train station, followed by a regional train to Bratislava, followed by a bus to Bratislava Airport; the second option was to take a taxi directly from Vienna to Bratislava Airport. Since many of us had flights to catch, and the first alternative connection seemed too tight, we ordered shared taxis and filed claims with the bus operator afterwards to recoup our expenses.

The bus operator has now replied that they will refund the original bus ticket prices, but not the taxi fares:

Unfortunately, due to our terms & conditions, modes of transportation such as Lyft/Uber, taxi, airline, limousine, etc. are not considered comparable carriage to that in which you had originally booked ("bus").

Are they correct in this interpretation? We assumed that "under comparable conditions… and at the earliest opportunity" would include the cheapest possible shared ground transportation that got us to our destination on time. Is "comparable conditions" a term with a specific legal meaning? (In case it matters, the original bus tickets were about €7 per person, while the taxi fare worked out to around €50 per person.)

I'm asking because we have the option of appealing the bus operator's final decision to the Austrian Agency for Passenger Rights, but will do so only if there's some non-negligible chance that the appeal will succeed.

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EDIT: Per @GiacomoCatenazzi's comment and my cross-checking with the bus's full timetable, it seems that the bus was not, in fact, a "long-distance bus" according to EU law, and so the EU passenger rights I mentioned do not necessarily apply. However, the bus operator's terms and conditions still describe compensation for delayed or cancelled trips, and use the term "comparable conditions", and so my basic question is still valid, at least insofar as it relates to enforcing the original contract.

Answer 1

This is a bit of a sensitive question. I believe there are some court cases (e.g. regarding maritime transportation) and sometimes divergent guidelines from national authorities but I am not familiar with all the details. The relevant EU regulations do not really define what “comparable conditions” are. Some of the disputes around this came from replacing a plane by a very long bus or train journey or asking people to use the landbridge over England instead of a direct France-Ireland ferry.

Importantly, on the face of it, the right to re-routing is not a right to make your own arrangements and demand that the operator pay for it. It's an obligation for the operator to find a solution with a bit of leeway as to what that solution might be. That's where the “comparable conditions“ kick in: the operator does not need to offer travel under the exact same conditions but merely “comparable” conditions. Yet, there is no fine and no clarity on what exactly you can do when an operator fails to respond in a timely manner or to provide a good solution.

I will note that all these regulations also make allowance for long-ish delays. There are nuances depending on the regulation and each of these rights is independent but for example the rights to assistance and compensation for air travel only kick in after a 2 to 4 hours delay. The bus passenger right web page you linked to even implies that having to wait up to two days is acceptable, as long as the operator pays for a cheap hotel and meals.

So the clause about “comparable conditions” is there to protect you against an operator trying to force you to accept a very inconvenient route or less comfortable means of transportation and not to define a list of solutions you could choose from. Getting to your destination in time by any means necessary is not really part of it and it's hard to argue that the next plane or bus on the same route would not be “comparable conditions”, if the operator would offer it.

Some comments also rightly pointed out that the relevant EU regulation might not even apply to this route. While Flixbus is a long-distance bus operator (and doesn't seem to have noticed they can get out of trouble in that way), Vienna-Bratislava is too short to qualify.

For all these reasons, I think an appeal based on the definition of “comparable conditions” is doomed. Your best bet is to focus on the lack of information and support on the ground (this may be actionable even in the absence of any passenger rights legislation) or perhaps turn to travel insurance, as suggested in a comment.