The New Competition For Bus Routes

30 January 2005 - 9:00am

Start-up bus companies are learning from Jet Blue and finding profit in popular bus routes. Travel from Boston to New Yrok for only $10.

"Immigrant enterprises don't often go head-to-head with huge corporations at critical moments in vital sectors. But partly by using tactics borrowed from discount airlines and online ticket brokers, that's what these little companies are doing to Greyhound... Chinatown buses have sucked Greyhound into a wounding war over its most-traveled runs, from New York to Washington, Philadelphia and Boston.

...The city's Chinatown is a short walk from South Station, Greyhound's base. Waiting at curbsides, Chinese buses enticed its passengers away. In spring 2003, the lure grew: a new company, Lucky Star, appeared with a $10 fare to New York. The others matched it, and turned Chinatown into a travel hub."

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Source: Wall St. Journal, January 29, 2005
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Even if the report overestimates the costs by a factor of two and underestimates the tax-benefit by a similar amount, the conclusion would be pretty much the same: destination resorts cost local government and taxpayers money.