In the late 1990s when the 1st low-fare bus service from Chinatown in NY to Chinatown in Boston started running, few would have anticipated the impact it would have had on the bus industry as a whole. This wasn’t a service that was marketed to the public. It was supposed to appeal to a concentrated group of people–recent Chinese immigrants–who needed a cheap way to travel between the 2 cities to visit family, shop, or work. The growth of this phenomenon was organic. The general public heard of the’Chinatown bus’ thru personal recommendation. It caught on quickly and soon the market was flooded with other companies offering similar service on a selection of routes.
it might be incorrect to say that the sole reason that these companies succeeded was due to price . Definitely this was the main enticement for travelers. However, it has to be said that the service that the conventional bus carriers was offering was ripe for competition. Honestly were the ‘full service’ offerings of the conventional bus firms worth a premium? Barely. Buyer service lacked on every level, bus stations did not provide a comfortable waiting area, buses were regularly tacky and service was plagued by delays.
Years after the advent of this first New York to Boston route, it is worth examining how it has caused the bus industry to develop in total. Overall, it kind of feels like the independent companies and the traditional carriers are meeting somewhere in the middle. Independent carriers have offered more facilities, stick to closer to safety standards and rules, and increase fares. At the same time, the standard carriers have been compelled to offer wildly competitive pricing and generally tighten up their operations. Greyhound and its partners tend to offer the most competitive pricing on the popular New York-Boston and Big Apple -DC routes. Further, these routes are the sole ones for which online customers don’t have to pay the large $4 online booking surcharge usually imposed at Greyhound’s web site. They heavily promote this discounted pricing and it sometimes requires customers to order in advance online ( purchasing tickets at the time of departure can be virtually twice as costly as thru their website ).
What about safety standards? This is the most quarrelsome point of discussion in the industry. There are many reports of safety violations and certainly anecdotal accounts of poor safety practices. However , it does not appear that the tangible safety records of these firms are really worse than other bus carriers that depend on the same Fed laws. 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. Despite the increased inspections, the FMCSA reported that curbside carriers had about the same rate of violations as other sorts of carriers under her agency’s authority3. This could be a sign that dangerous operators have either stopped running or have improved their level of safety.
Fortunately bus travel is generally a highly safe mode of transportation, with an average yearly fatality rate of only 22 for the past ten years. No bus deaths to date have involved Chinatown bus carriers. Mishaps are frequently reported for all segments of the industry–municipal buses, line run carriers, charter and tour companies1,2. No concrete research has indicated that Chinatown bus corporations have a higher prevalence of Problems than other operators.
It is important to note that what used to be a little niche of the bus industry is now an overcrowded segment. To pile 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 sizable companies with many employees and fleets of buses.
Another development is that Chinese immigrants are not the sole players in this segment of the bus industry. Many supposed’Chinatown’ bus firms are owned by Hassidic Jews. In addition many charter bus companies have entered the line-run business utilizing the same low cost model as Chinatown bus lines.
The Chinatown bus industry has grown from a simple, one-man-operation to a longtime segment of the bus industry. In all likelihood the evolution of the industry is not complete. We intend to possibly see some regulatory changes that will effect how the Chinatown carriers run their operations. Similarly, as competition within the segment increases, the poorly run operators will 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 shoppers are more than happy to forgo many of the services offered by standard carriers in order to economize.
1Police : Driver fatigue likely account for fatal bus crash
Monday, November 28, 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 ; officials seek cause
By Lucas Wall, Boston globe October six, 2005
3 sworn statement of Annette Sandberg, FMCSA administrator, given before the House board on transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on highways, Transit and Pipelines. Washington DC, March second, 2006.
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