Intercity buses in the United States

Intercity buses have been an important mode of long-distance, passenger transportation in the United States.

The first intercity buses appeared not long after the introduction of the automobile in the 1910s and 1920s.^[1][2] Greyhound Lines, for example, began operations in Hibbing, Minnesota in 1914.

As with all other transportation industries in the United States at the time, intercity buses were hit hard by the Great Depression. The passage of the Motor Carrier Act of 1935 sought to help, which amended the Interstate Commerce Act to regulate bus companies as common carriers.^[3] As part of this legislation, interstate bus operators needed an operating permit from the Interstate Commerce Commission, and they had to abide to set of regulations about safety, finance, insurance, and accounting. They also needed ICC approval before making any changes to fares or entering or departing routes in a specified market.^[1]

By the mid-1950s, the intercity bus industry, centered around a duopoly of Greyhound Lines and Trailways, had a combined fleet of over 2,000 buses that connected 15,000 cities and towns.

The late 1960s, however, saw the beginning of a multi-decade period of a decline to the industry, a downturn caused by several concurrent trends. The primary factor was the rapidly expanding use of the private automobile and commercial aviation for long-distance travel, which siphoned away many travelers. Another was expanding urban decay that caused many neighborhoods with bus depots to become more dangerous. A third was the passage of the Bus Regulatory Reform Act of 1982, which reversed pricing models and market-entry rules introduced by the Motor Carrier Act, allowing carriers to more easily abandon unprofitable routes. While this allowed remaining operators to pivot to heavily-traveled routes that generated more revenue, typically those connecting major urban areas along interstate highways, it also meant the widespread abandonment of loss-making services in rural areas.^[4]

While American intercity buses carried 140 million riders in 1960, this number decreased to 40 million by 1990.^[5] By 1997, intercity bus transportation accounted for only 3.6% of travel in the United States.^[6] In 1987, the continued deterioration of market conditions led Greyhound to acquire rival Trailways, leaving it as the single carrier operating at the national level.

In the late 1990s, Chinatown bus lines that connected Manhattan with Boston and Philadelphia's Chinatowns began operating. They became popular with non-Chinese college students and others who wanted inexpensive transportation, and between 1997 and 2007 Greyhound lost 60% of its market share in the Northeastern United States to the Chinatown buses.

During the 2000s, new bus lines such as Megabus and BoltBus emulated the Chinatown buses' practices of low prices and curbside stops on a much larger scale, both in the original Northeast Corridor and elsewhere, while introducing yield management techniques to the industry.^[5][7][8]

By 2010, curbside buses' annual passenger volume had risen by 33% and they accounted for more than 20% of all bus trips.^[5] One analyst estimated that curbside buses that year carried at least 2.4 billion passenger miles in the Northeast Corridor, compared to 1.7 billion passenger miles for Amtrak trains.^[7] Traditional depot-based bus lines also grew, benefiting from what the American Bus Association called "the Megabus effect",^[5] and both Greyhound and its subsidiary Yo! Bus, which competed directly with the Chinatown buses, benefited after the federal government shut down several Chinatown lines in June 2012.^[8]

Between 2006 and 2014, U.S. intercity buses focused on medium-haul trips between 200 and 300 miles; airplanes performed the bulk of longer trips and automobiles shorter ones. For most medium-haul trips curbside bus fares were less than the cost of automobile gasoline, and one tenth that of Amtrak. Buses are also four times more fuel-efficient than automobiles. Their Wi-Fi service is also popular; one study estimated that 92% of Megabus and BoltBus passengers planned to use an electronic device.^[5] New lower fares introduced by Greyhound on traditional medium-distance routes and rising gasoline prices have increased ridership across the network and made bus travel cheaper than all alternatives.

Effective June 25, 2014, Greyhound reintroduced many much longer bus routes, including New York City-Los Angeles, Los Angeles-Vancouver, and others, while increasing frequencies on existing long-distance and ultra-long-distance buses routes. This turned back the tide of shortening bus routes and puts Greyhound back in the position of competing with long-distance road trips, airlines, and trains. Long-distance buses were to have Wi-Fi, power outlets, and extra legroom, sometimes extra recline, and were to be cleaned, refueled, and driver-changed at major stations along the way, coinciding with Greyhound's eradication of overbooking. It also represented Greyhound's traditional bus expansion over the expansion of curbside bus lines.^[9]

As happened with many forms of passenger transportation in the United States, the intercity bus industry was severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. During the first months of the pandemic, many scheduled carriers entirely shut down operations while those that continued to operate at less than 25% capacity.^[10] The industry additionally received little direct aid from the 2021 CARES Act, which provided financial support to companies operating other modes of transportation. By 2021, the number of scheduled services were estimated to be at just 30% of the their pre-pandemic levels.^[11]

Between 2019 and 2020, the number of FMCSA-registered motor coaches declined from 2,978 to 1,450, with a rebound of only about 100 new carriers by 2022. A similar trend was found by the American Bus Association, which claimed that approximately 25% of all pre-pandemic carriers had closed by the end of 2021.^[12]

Multiple carriers went out of business during this period, including the Greyhound-owned Bolt Bus.

• Badger Bus
• Barons Bus Lines
• Coach USA
• Concord Coach Lines
• FlixBus / Greyhound Lines
• Indian Trails
• Jefferson Lines
• OurBus
• Peter Pan Bus Lines
• Salt Lake Express
• Trailways Transportation System (independent bus companies entered into a franchising agreement)
• Trans-Bridge Lines
• Tufesa
• Vamoose Bus
• Van Galder Bus Company

• BoltBus
• Burlington Trailways
• Limoliner
• Megabus (subsidiary of Coach USA)
• Orange Belt Stages
• Stagecoach Group

The Federal Transit Administration provides some assistance for intercity bus services through its Formula Grants for Rural Areas program (5311), which gives money to states and federally recognized Indian Tribes to support bus operators in rural areas. The 5311 Program requires recipient states to spend no less than 15% of their annual funds to develop and support intercity bus transportation, unless they can certify their state has no unmet intercity bus needs.^[13]

Several states use these funds to support statewide intercity bus networks, contracting with local or regional bus operators to provide dedicated scheduled services to communities in their states. Examples include:

• Bustang (Colorado)
• North Carolina Intercity Bus Service^[14]
• POINT Intercity Bus Service (Oregon)
• Virginia Breeze
• Travel Washington

Information and statistics on intercity bus travel in the United States is available from several public sources. Data on publicly-operated intercity services is available from the Federal Transit Administration's National Transit Database.^[15][16] The American Bus Association also performs an annual Motorcoach Census, which includes metrics on scheduled intercity coach operations.^[17]

A leading center for academic research on the industry is the Chaddick Institute at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois.^[18]

Since 2017, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics has maintained the Intercity Bus Atlas, a web map of scheduled intercity passenger bus services in the United States.^[16]

Interstate intercity bus operators in the United States must comply with Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration regulations.^[19]

On August 4, 1952, Greyhound Lines had its deadliest crash when two Greyhound buses collided head-on along then-U.S. Route 81 near Waco, Texas. The fuel tanks of both buses then ruptured, bursting into flames. Of the 56 persons aboard both coaches, 28 were killed, including both drivers.^[20][21]

On May 9, 1980, a freight ship collided with the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, resulting in several vehicles, including a Greyhound bus, falling into the Tampa Bay. All 26 people on the bus perished, along with nine others. This is the largest loss of life on a single Greyhound coach to date.

On March 5, 2010, a bus operated by Tierra Santa Inc. crashed on Interstate 10 in Arizona, killing six and injuring sixteen passengers. The bus was not carrying insurance, and had also been operating illegally because the company had applied for authority to operate an interstate bus service, but had failed to respond to requests for additional information.^[22][23]

Though generally rare, various incidents have occurred over time involving both drivers and passengers on intercity buses. To help, the Transportation Security Administration has resources available to bus companies to improve security.^[24]

Security became a concern following the September 11 attacks. Less than a month later, on October 3, 2001, Damir Igric, a passenger on a Greyhound bus, slit the throat of the driver (who later survived his injuries and was hospitalized) and tried to take control of the bus, resulting in a crash that killed 7 passengers, including Igric, and injuring six other passengers. It was determined there was no connection between the September 11 attacks and this incident. Nevertheless, this raised concern.

On September 30, 2002, another Greyhound driver was assaulted near Fresno, California, resulting in two passenger deaths after the bus then rolled off an embankment and crashed.^[25] Following this attack, driver shields were installed on most Greyhound buses that now prevent passengers from directly having contact with the driver while the bus is in motion, even if the shield is forced open. On buses which do not have the shield, the seats directly behind the driver are generally off limits.^[26]

The growing popularity in the United States of new bus lines such as Megabus and BoltBus that pick up and drop off passengers on the street instead of bus depots has led to a rise in the perceived security of intercity buses. Megabus states that a quarter of its passengers are unaccompanied women.^[5]

• Bus station
• Intercity bus driver
• Amtrak Thruway