In the late 1990s when the 1st low-fare bus service from Chinatown in NY to Chinatown in Boston started running, few would have expected the impact it would’ve had on the bus industry as a whole.  This was not a service that was marketed to the public.  It was supposed to appeal to a concentrated group of people–recent Chinese immigrants–who needed an inexpensive way to travel between the two cities to visit family, shop, or work.  The growth of this phenomenon was organic.  The general public heard about the’Chinatown bus’ thru personal recommendation.  It caught on quickly and soon the market was flooded with other firms offering similar service on a selection of routes. 

it would be wrong to assert that the sole reason that these corporations succeeded was due to price .  Actually this was the main enticement for travelers.  However, it must be recounted the service that the traditional bus carriers was offering was ready for competition.  Truthfully were the ‘full service’ offerings of the conventional bus firms worth a premium?  Barely.  Shopper service lacked on each level, bus stations didn’t offer a comfortable waiting area, buses were regularly tacky and service was troubled by delays. 

Years after the arrival of this first NY to Boston route, it is worth examining how it has been responsible for the bus industry to evolve in total.  Overall, it kind of feels like the independent firms and the conventional carriers are meeting somewhere in the middle.  Independent carriers have had to give more comforts, stick to more closely to safety standards and laws, and increase fares.  At the same time, the traditional carriers have been forced to offer wildly competitive pricing and typically tighten up their operations.  Greyhound and its partners have a tendency to offer the most competitive pricing on the popular New York-Boston and NY -DC routes.  Further, these routes are the only ones for which online customers do not have to pay the large $4 online booking surcharge often imposed at Greyhound’s web site.  They heavily promote this discounted pricing and it customarily requires customers to book in advance online ( purchasing tickets at the time of departure can be almost twice as expensive as through their internet site ). 

What about safety standards?  This is the most contentious point of debate in the industry.  There are many reports of safety violations and certainly anecdotal accounts of poor safety practices.  However , it doesn’t appear that the tangible safety records of these companies are actually worse than other bus carriers that depend on the same Fed rules.  Thanks to intense lobbying efforts, in 2004 a special task force was set up by the Fed Motor Carrier Safety Administration ( FMCSA ) to step up inspections of’curbside’ ( Chinatown ) bus corporations.  Regardless of the increased inspections, the FMCSA said that curbside carriers had about the same rate of violations as other types of carriers under her agency’s authority3.  This could be a sign that unsafe operators have either stopped running or have improved their level of safety.

Fortuitously bus travel is generally a highly safe style of transportation, with a mean annual death rate of only 22 for the past 10 years.  No bus fatalities to date have concerned Chinatown bus carriers.  Misfortunes are frequently reported for all segments of the industry–municipal buses, line run carriers, charter and tour companies1,2.  No concrete research has suggested that Chinatown bus companies have a higher incidence of Problems than other operators. 

it is vital to note that what used to be a small niche of the bus industry is now a crowded segment.  To lump all carriers following this low-cost model in the same group would be badly judged.  The standard of the service offered by the various corporations is variable.  Some are fly-by-night concerns while others have transitioned into large firms with many employees and fleets of buses. 

Another development is that Chinese immigrants are no longer the only players in this segment of the bus industry.  Many supposed’Chinatown’ bus firms are owned by Hassidic Jews.  In addition many charter bus firms have entered the line-run business employing the same low cost model as Chinatown bus lines. 

The Chinatown bus industry has grown from an easy, one-man-operation to an established segment of the bus industry.  In all likelihood the evolution of the industry is not complete.  We may possibly see some regulatory changes which will effect the way in which the Chinatown carriers run their operations.  Similarly, as competition within the segment increases, the poorly run operators will most probably be forced out of the game.  The traditional carriers will have to continue to offer competitive fares and will also need to find new techniques compete.  What is extravagantly clear is that consumers are more than pleased to forgo plenty of the services offered by conventional carriers to save cash. 

1Police : Driver fatigue likely allow for fatal bus crash
Monday, Nov twenty-eight, 2005 ; Posted : 7:15 a.m.  EST ( 12:15 GMT ) http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/11/27/california.bus/

2T bus catches fire in Everett ; blaze is 4th in five weeks
No riders are hurt ; officers seek cause
By Lucas Wall, Boston globe October six, 2005

three affidavit of Annette Sandberg, FMCSA director, given before the House panel on transport and Infrastructure Subcommittee on roads, Transit and Pipelines.  Washington DC, March second, 2006.

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