Greyhound will be making fewer stops in small towns across Alberta starting this fall.

The company announced it is reducing service between Calgary, Lethbridge and Medicine Hat, and many small towns in-between.

Nanton, Okotoks, High River, Claresholm and Taber are among the latest stops to be dropped.

The company said there just aren’t enough people being picked up in those locations.

Nanton Mayor John Blake said he's watched as nearly empty buses drive in and out of town.

“You see this great big bus go by, there's a trailer behind it full of freight and nobody in the bus,” Blake said.

Gary Galbreath, who represents Greyhound workers with the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1374, said having fewer stops makes it less convenient for people to take the service.

“They dropped one [run] and said: ‘Well, everybody that was on that one will go on the other one,’ and people didn’t,” Galbreath said.

Greyhound cut 12 rural destinations last October in an attempt to make up $7.5 million it said it was losing on the outlying routes.

Since then, a number of smaller companies have added routes, some serviced by vans.