Decamp Bus Lines

Hit or miss. Some drivers are very friendly, and some need an antidepressant. Leaving NJ it may be behind schedule. Leaving NYC is always on time. Pretty quiet on the bus. A very relaxed ride, and Port Authority is less hectic than Penn Station. I hate that the prices keep going up though. But that’s life…

I have been living around the Montclair/​Bloomfield area for over 10 years… and unfortunately I always had to commute with DeCamp.
Until this day, it still boggles my mind that a company like this is still in business and never fails to mistreat their customers. I understand that having a monopoly on the service line gives them a certain «relaxation» and can be «loose» in their operations but I strongly believe the «culture» of this company is to torture their customers.
Their service is at best unreliable, bus drivers are rude and does not even have a common courtesy to the riders, under/​or not trained (talking on the phone while driving the bus ???), their dispatchers does not have a clue about the status of their busses (just today, the bus was full to the brim due to the M. Luther King Jr. day, only after my call to the dispatcher she got informed that bus was not able to take any more passengers). And I guess the owner of the company is so out of touch to even google reviews for his/​her company. This company does not deserve to be in business, especially in this economy where there are better companies out there which operate with dignity. And basically Decamp should stop abusing their riders.
I am looking forward to the day that I will NOT be using this archaic, unprofessional company anymore. I wish I could give them a negative star instead of one… because they don’t deserve any… NONE…

Every day this line 32 Nutley is LATE, it is unbelievable and why the h3ll they have s bus schedule if they are never on time. They also have stopped answering the phone. I really hate their service and will look for anything else.

I was going to write a bad review on the driver of bus 8435 on Ridge Road in North Arlington. The driver cut off three people including me. Then i read the reviews here and thought better of it. Youre just a bus driver for a crappy company. Your life sucks enough.

In a month or so, I will be moving and will not have to ride DeCamp buses every day. HALLELUJAH. The service is terrible. Buses are often late without explanation, and Saturday is the worst.
Unfortunately I work Saturdays and I have learned not to rush for the 6:30 pm bus because it usually arrives somewhere between 6:45 and 7:30. There is NO dispatcher on duty so you stand and stand… and wait and wait… for 20 minutes to an hour, and the excuse, if you bother to get one, is always, «traffic». Sure, sometimes. …but EVERY Saturday… If there is any way you can take a NJ Transit bus instead of DeCamp, TAKE IT.

Horrible, horrible bus service. Usually 15 – 40 minutes late, too hot and stuffy, and very hard to tell what stops you’re getting off at unless you already know by sight. There are no announcements. It’s been this way for years. Avoid it if you can.

Always late. Rude drivers. Stay away unless you absolutely have no other choice! Drivers constantly make their own routes and take local highway when they should be staying in the express bus lane towards the tunnel. Can’t count how many times I’ve been late due to a driver decision not to take the bus lane. We are moving to another town and I cannot wait to never be on one of these awful buses. They also somehow seem to keep raising prices even though the buses are second and third generation hand me downs from nj transit. Just terrible.

The good: DeCamp is much more civilized than NJTransit. Your fellow commuters properly queue to get on the bus and are very respectful and courteous. There is no chaotic mad dash and trampling that goes on in Penn Station when the gate is posted. There is no eating, drinking or talking on the bus so there is no need to deal with unruly passengers. Also, cost. I’m able to easily walk to a bus stop. If you factor the price of a bus ticket vs. the cost of driving, parking and taking the train, the bus is cheaper. (If your lucky enough to live within walking distance to the train, than the train is definitely cheaper and faster.)
The Bad: Bus announcements. The only way to find out if the bus is on time or even in service is by joining their Twitter feed. Which isn’t very effective when they post that your bus isn’t in service five minutes before it’s suppose to arrive and your left standing in the cold until the next one (hopefully) 30 minutes later. Also, maintenance. Every once is awhile I get that one bus seat with the chairback that doesn’t stay up, it just keeps falling back into a reclined position.
The Ugly: Commute time. Allocate 2+ hours on the bus alone. What’s the point of having only one designated bus lane, having all the buses from the entire state of NJ merge into that lane, building up traffic and extending the commute time?

Review from April 2012: We all have moments of insanity — that was mine. This is a miserable way of travel and compares to jitneys in isolated foreign countries
An unbelievable experience that will make even the most hardened NY’er crumble from exhaustion.
WHY THE FUCK CANT YOU LABEL BUSES, LINES, MAPS and INFORMATION LIKE A NORMAL BUSINESS?
Whatever moron came up with the numbering system should be forced to deal with it every single day, for the rest of their life.
instead of having three lines labeled #33/​33G/​33X, or #66 wouldn’t this be better:
33 Exact route is Route 3 to Grove Street to Bloomfield avenue
34 Exact Route travels on 280, skips over everything until you get to West Orange
35 Exact Route is a meandering trip through Bloomfield, Montclair, Verona, etc.
66 Similar descriptions…
67
68
I’m not asking you to reinvent the wheel. I’m stating the obvious: get your shit together already.
The best part is two young ladies from Italy where behind me a few weeks ago. They eventually asked me how it works because they were having a hard time and assumed their English perhaps wasn’t translating well enough to understand. I told them, in Italian, «Il tuo Inglese è buono. È la società di autobus che è il problema» (Your English if fine. It the bus company that’s the problem.)
Are you serious Decamp? Have you been to Italy? Its a mess, but when Italians are confused, you KNOW YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG.

I can only speak for the #33 round trip bus (Caldwell to NYPA line), which has been on time over the years, for the most part. One thing I’ve learned is that if it does ever arrive early at your stop, it will leave early, so it’s best to show up early. Wow, that’s a lot of ‘earlry’s.‘
The fares keep going up, but so does the cost to enter Lincoln Tunnel, so it’s understandable. I can remember a year or two ago it was $ 6.00 each way from my stop and $ 12 to enter Lincoln but now it’s $ 7.40 and $ 13, respectively.
Final word of advice: bring exact change or else the bus driver might conveniently not have any to give you back (ie. The driver is pocketing the difference and you’re getting hosed.)

Visiting from out of town. Got on the right bus from the Port Authority, which was a major endeavor. Asked the driver to please tell me when we reached a certain cross street in Montclair. It wasn’t until we were in Montclair and I again asked him, «How far to this cross street?» I was told, we’d past it and I needed to walk back. 17 degrees, on feet that had hiked Manhattan all day, 1.7 miles.
This is a great way to treat visitors to our town.

This article on baristanet proves that DECAMP SUCKS SO MUCH
It is so bad that Assemblyman Ralph Caputo is now involved!!! I can only hope this will convince decamp to change their ways.

In the depth of winter they run late and make you freeze your socks off. They are consistently behind schedule and rude. They do not respond to feedback sent on the website or any form and make it sound like they, as employees, are the victims of the same broken system when you call them on the phone. The website schedules are not mobily optimized. The bus numbers are stupid and the lines at port authority are left to the customers to regulate. I have been on more than one of their buses that has broken down. One even filled with smoke. If you can find another means to commute, you are probably better off. It can get you to work, but on time and with your dignity is a different story.

Really the only plus to DeCamp is that if you’re looking to get to Montclair and beyond, it’s quite fast from Port Authority. Compare with a NJ Transit train that is twice as long (and doesn’t run on weekends!). However, AVOID the return trip during rush hour and take the train instead. You will be trapped in the Lincoln Tunnel line for up to two hours. There is no bathroom on board.
While rude drivers who careen down Route 3 like it’s the autobahn is a given with DeCamp (though I have to admit, a couple of them were downright pleasant), what is INEXCUSABLE is when they don’t heed their own schedule and leave riders stranded… I can’t remember how many times I would encounter at least a dozen commuter faculty, staff and students at the MSU bus stop, waiting in freezing weather for a bus that was 20 min. late (not an unusual occurrence, and a few said they arrived 15 minutes before scheduled departure)… when irate riders phoned dispatch to inquire how much longer, it was revealed the bus was already at Port Authority, and must have left the school 20 min. early! The scramble to catch the next train suddenly adds another hour to the evening…

We as customers of a bus line ask for 1 thing, that you be on time according to the schedule you have posted or printed. They come whenever so don’t plan anything around them. If you have to be at work at a certain time, take the train or NJ Transit. Dispatch is ALWAYS rude, condescending, and will hang up on you if you call to ask about the busses not following the schedule. They don’t care because they don’t have to. They know they are the only means of transportation option in some cases, so they have become lazy, rude and have no aspirations to become a better company. The owner should be ashamed of himself and his employees.

Absolute A-​holes. I called last night around 10pm (during the Hurricane Sandy disaster) to ask if they were running. They told me no because Port Authority was closed and REFUSED to give me names of any competitor lines to help me out (such as Suburban bus out of West Orange). I knew for a fact Port Authority was open as other busses were going into it. DeCamp told me it was not running.
Anyway.fast forward to the next morning and DeCamp busses WERE running. The A-​hole just didn’t bother to check with his boss and told me incorrect information.

I’ve always had a good experience on Decamp. It leaves ON TIME from Penn Station, but picking up in NJ can be a wait. Makes sense, since there are always people fiddling for tickets or taking their time or needing the bottom opened. But I understand why some people are pissed about waiting for longer periods… ten minutes is not bad. 30 minutes — not good!
I’ve been lucky to have the pleasant drivers, I guess. And the riders are usually in pretty good moods too. It’s quiet — mainly because talking on a cell is discouraged. And it’s always been clean when I’ve ridden on the bus.
I’ll update if I have a worse experience, but so far — so good.

I’ve taken this three times to Belleville from PA… and will do so perpetually. It leaves about 1 min early and gets me a block and a half away from my job. Driver is mostly rude, and surly at best.
I’ve taken from Belleville to NY ONCE… and it was about 10 min late, and got there okay otherwise. Not feeling these other reviews, it might be me stranded out there one day =[
Do yourself a favor, bum a ride to Newark Penn Station and take then NJT it to NY Penn Station.

Wow! The reviews of this bus company are harsh. I have a few points to enlighten those that may be completely deterred.
Firstly, I really like my morning driver (a very nice tattooed veteran) and I love Sal, my evening driver. Though I agree that some of the drivers are rude and unaccommodating, I also think that some of the PASSENGERS are equally horrible. I have only been on one — yes ONE — bus where the no cell phone/​no eating policies were enforced, and I was GRATEFUL! Honestly, I don’t need to hear about how your daughter-​in-​law wants a Cartier watch presented to her on her 30^th birthday at Per Se, while you chow down on a smelly egg, fish and onion sandwich.
I lived in a city for 5 years and I think that a large number of suburbanites have a sense of entitlement that should not be accepted nor pacified. Just the other day I was on the Montclair bound 66 when an older gentleman started screaming because his reading light wasn’t working. Seriously! He distracted the driver while in the tunnel because he was yelling about a non-​functioning light ! He finally moved to a seat with a working light, only to fall asleep 2 minutes later as we exited the tunnel.
Another important thing to consider is the other commuting option — NJ Transit. Before taking the bus to the city, I relied on NJ Transit, which was constantly delayed because of various reasons -«electrical» problems at Penn, forest fires, rain, snow, pygmies on the track, good weather, rainbows and butterflies. Because of NJ Transit I have been over 2 hours late for work. It was not unusual to be diverted to Hoboken. For many brief moments, I would blink, realize I was on the Path and hate my life.
I may be late, the driver could be rude and the bus might pass me by, but at least I know I won’t end up in Hoboken tomorrow morning.

I’m not home in New Jersey very often now, but I have been riding this bus since I moved to Montclair 17 years ago. While I was too young to remember the first times I took this bus, I do remember some very pleasant, friendly, and social drivers. I will never forget Sal and his ducks and the bus being a spaceship.
Today, the bus line has gotten worse than ever. My mom takes this bus every day to work in NYC and back. She’s sick and tired of it, and she would take the train, but Penn Station is too crowded and she has a problem with stairs. DeCamp has some of the rudest, most unfriendly and unhelpful drivers around. They take buses off with no notification. The dispatcher at the Port Authority is not very nice himself, and the company pays no regard to the grievances of passengers. I don’t care what their policies are, they have no right to be this unkind to paying customers. The train is often less expensive, the majority of conductors are friendly and sociable, and you can at least talk on your cell phone softly. I’ve always said that NJ Transit Bus Operations needs to take over this ridiculous and dysfunctional bus line.