The effect of Megabus

"We are trying to get their cars, people," explains Coach USA CEO Moser Andrew Hetherington

By Ben Austen

One morning in Chicago in late December, 60 people are aligned along a downtown Street outside, waiting for buses headed to Des Moines, Indianapolis and Kansas City. It is 20F, greenhouses of wind and sway and stamp travellers. Student Psychology Clinical at the University of Illinois at Chicago, standing about four guys white dreadlocks, said that he paid $26 for a trip of 200 miles in Iowa City, which invites someone else to boast that his seat on the same bus to imperial cost of $5.

They are all there to intercept rides offered by Megabus, the largest private companies to privatize the model of "bus" Chinatown in New York on the side street pickup, express travel between fare merchant and scalable cities. Half a mile from the Greyhound station and just on the outskirts of the greatness of Beaux Arts of Union Station, only identification of the Megabus judgment is a sign of modest Street displaying the name of the company over its mascota Free character, Benny Hill-like cap driving a yellow.

After the departure of the bus of the monks, a dispatcher Cree that Indianapolis-bound travellers can sit on the "bus of global warming." He points to a white coach idling of 50 feet to the street. The crowd migrated in this way, leaving the pavement Dale Moser, CEO of the parent company of Megabus, Coach USA. Delivered only in a leather jacket thin and protectors of ears, Moser, 55, said he looked operations for more than an hour. He immediately begins detailing the merits of the company: how 90% of the clients of books online, many simply showing SearchText tickets to their phones to the Council; How buses all offer them Wi - Fi free of charge and taken power at every seat. How each trip includes at least a rate of $1, with prices going up that approaching the date of departure and that the bus fills; how there is no terminals or storefronts, just a staff of back-office of the bones bare; How the bus fleet is in constant use. "Cut you all that over your business, you will find that you can pass this savings to customers, so driving volume," Moser said. About once a month he mounted the bus itself, as a sort of secret shopper, people to chat and ask questions about their travel experiences. "If they look at me as I am a real creeper, I tell them who I am," he said.

When in my pen ink freezes, I asked if he would be the continuing spirit of our conversation inside. The head of the largest carrier "bus collection" - a mode of transport which is by far the most rapid growth - nation investigation its bustling hub of Chicago. He suggests the Dunkin ' Donuts across the street.

Megabus and Coach USA are held by the British company Stagecoach Group and they have fundamentally changed the way in which Americans - especially young people - travel, so much so that they can help to kill plans for the new railways.

In 2010, Megabus launched its third and fourth hubs in Philadelphia and Washington. He currently 100 million dollars in each year, operation 135 buses each day to 50 U.S. cities. While other companies reduced over the past two years, Megabus has hired additional 270 workers and 36 million in the company. Each month, this year, it will add five to six new participants to its fleet.

Appearances to the contrary, Megabus and the other major collection bus companies argue that their model has little to do with the carriers of Chinatown. The difference may be a question of scale. Fung Wah, for example, is still 24 trips per day in New York, Boston's only road. Megabus began service nonstop from Chicago to seven cities in the Midwest, all with populations of approximately 1 million and increased from there.

On the undeniable similarities of the Chinatown buses, Moser business model, explains: "We are nothing like them, except for the edge of the sidewalk." (Fung Wah transport refused to comment on). Why Megabus and others distance themselves from non-corporate carriers becomes even more obvious in March, when a Charter bus returning to New York Chinatown casino Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Connecticut, returned on 95 in New York and was sheared in twokilling 15. A few days later a bus serving mainly Chinese immigrants ran off the coast of New Jersey Turnpike, killing the driver and a passenger. Suddenly, there are calls to investigate the practices of all discount bus companies. "There is a perception that we are a trade good business," Moser said. "But to offer a service of low prices, we do cut corners on safety.". Safety is our priority. ?

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