• 1997-2001: Starting up

  New York has a lot of immigrants and many of them are Chinese immigrants. In the early years, Chinese restaurants were popular choices for Chinese immigrants. While Chinese restaurant business could not grow unlimitedly, some Chinese immigrants sought their opportunities in other industries.

  One of the successful industries created during this period is the famous Chinatown Bus. At the beginning, vans were used for shuttle services between New York Chinatown and Brooklyn. Among several bus operators, Fung Wah bus, Sunshine Travel and Travel Pack (whose line run business later was merged to Lucky Star) were popular bus service providers between New York and Boston. The majority of Chinatown Bus customers were Asian in this period.

  Major Event: 9/11 changed bus travel industry in two ways: the long security wait converted some air travelers to bus travelers; and many tour operators abandoned tour business to pick up inter-city (aka Line Run) business.

• 2002: Beginning of Online Ticketing and Hello to Main-Stream Customers

  In the Spring of 2002, GotoBus.com (formerly known as ivymedia.com) helped Travel Pack start the first online ticketing service to enter the main-stream market. During the Summer of 2002, Sunshine, Fung Wah and Dragon Coach worked with GotoBus.com to market and ticket their bus services online.

  During this period, Chinatown bus lines experienced phenomenal growth both in number of customers and their popularity. Fung Wah Bus, Sunshine, Travel Pack were expanding quickly while Dragon Coach and New Century started bus lines from New York to Washington DC and New York to Philadelphia. Online ticketing exposed Chinatown Bus companies to mainstream customers in addition to Asian customers.

• 2003 - Mid 2005: Quick Expansion and Internal Competition

  The infusion of mass market, partially brought by online ticketing, led to the quick expansion of Chinatown bus lines that include many popular operators like Eastern Travel and Today's Bus, arisen as major bus service providers between New York and Washington DC.

  The bus lines between Boston and New York however suffered big losses due to an unthinkable price war that lasted more than a year. During this difficult period, a one-way ticket between Boston and New York dropped to $10 per passenger. As a result, Sunshine voluntarily gave up this route while the line run business of Travel Pack was merged to Lucky Star that entered this business in early 2003.

  The route between New York and Washington DC also had price wars periodically but each could not last for more than two months. Several violence reports surfaced relating to a few Chinatown bus lines and some of their owners. The violence went away around 2004 while competition amongs Chinatown Bus lines continued.

  As the result of a lawsuit brought by Peter Pan Bus line, starting from September 2004 the City of Boston no longer allows Chinatown bus lines to pick up or drop off customers in Boston Chinatown. The Chinatown bus lines operating from Boston and the business in Boston Chinatown were affected.

• Mid 2005 - Early 2008: Getting Professional as a Contender in the US Inter-City Bus Services

  A bus accident changed the fates of many Chinatown bus owners in the Summer of 2005. A bus from a major Chinatown bus line caught fire on I-91. Fortunately, all passengers were safely evacuated before the fire. One may think that it should have feared better than Greyhound when its fatigue driver crashed a bus and killed two people in California around the Thanksgiving holiday.

  All of the sudden, local and state government in New York, led by senator Schumer, started to impose strict regulations on Chinatown bus lines, including surprise inspections and forced disclosures, among others.

  Whether this treatment was fair or not, Chinatown bus lines had no choice but to improve their safety measures and quality of services to meet strict government regulations and to attract repeating and new customers. Even under massive media coverage on police crack down, consumers continue to endorse Chinatown bus lines, as evidenced by online ticketing traffic by the largest bus ticketing service at gotobus.com, which was named 'Best of the Web' by The Washington Post in February 2007. The very existence and the growth of Chinatown bus lines reflect the need from consumers on this type of services. Consequently Chinatown bus lines got much more professional as a strong contender in the US inter-city bus business.

  Here is a sample comparison: On January 11, 2008, Greyhound/PeterPan listed 33 schedules departing New York City to Washington, DC, while GotoBus.com listed 55 such schedules.

• April 2008 - present: Competing with Major Bus Operators and High Growth of Ridership

  After long and exhausted lobbying failure against curbside bus companies, Greyhound and Peter Pan bus reversed their position and jointly formed, in April 2008, a curbside bus line, BoltBus, in hope to recover some lost market share to Chinatown bus and to fender the anticipated entry of MegaBus that competes with Greyhound in the Mid-West region. In May 2008, megabus also started the bus operations in the East Coast. Both of these two companies use 'From $1' as the marketing tool to attract new customers. Some Chinatown bus lines matched the 'From $1' marketing model and others continued the fix price model. A dynamic price war started among all bus service providors.

  Major Event: Record-high oil price brought record-high ridership. The US inter-city bus industry is embracing both high growth of ridership and fiercer competition. Chinatown bus continues to be an important part of this industry.

• Are Chinatown Buses Legal?

  In November 2007, GotoBus.com worked with DOT FMCSA on the complaints from unidentified sources against two 'Chinatown Bus' companies. The complaints allege that these two companies do not have authority to conduct the bus business. GotoBus.com contacted both companies and found that these two companies contract other charter bus companies for the actual bus operations (one company charters from a third-party bus company, the other charters from a company which is owned by themselves). The DOT numbers and insurances of their chartered bus companies were well documented in DOT published website. Although DOT did not want to make a decision on these complaints based on GotoBus' investigation, DOT found that these charter companies have proper license and insurance, unlike the original claims.

  The competitions between big bus service providers and Chinatown Bus are all over the public domain. Big companies tend to mobilize more resources, from federal government to local government, to place obstacles on smaller operators like Chinatown Bus. Fortunately, the public has been endorsing smaller operators due to their service quality and prices. The spirit of entrepreneurship is always booming in the United States.

In the northeastern area, in addition to popular Boston - New York, New York - Washington DC, the coverage expands to Hartford, CT (by Boston Deluxe), Philadelphia (by Today's Bus), Baltimore (by Dragon Coach). The lines extend to Virginia (by Eastern Travel, Today's Bus and New York Tiger). Today's Bus even offers the bus service between New York and Atlanta. Dragon Coach provides daily bus service between New York and Albany. All State Bus runs a very popular bus services between New York City and State College, PA while expanding its services to cover New York City and Chicago.

In the West Coast, Chinatown bus lines are best known to cover four major cities: the bus service connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco is provided by USAsia; USAsia, Bravo Travel have regular bus services between Los Angeles and Las Vegas; USAsia has additional bus service between San Francisco and Reno, NV. Horse Run started bus services between Phoenix, AZ and Los Angeles.

Disclaimer: GotoBus.com currently provides online ticketing services for most Chinatown bus lines and other bus lines operated by non-Chinese, such as Vamoose Bus and Washington Deluxe. Should you have more detailed information towards Chinatown bus lines, please contact chinatownbus@gotobus.com so we can provide more accurate information.