History
An established brand for no-frills service in the United Kingdom since 2003, Stagecoach Group, through subsidiary Coach USA, introduced the Megabus brand in March 2006. On March 22, 2006, Megabus started taking bookings for new routes in the United States (service began on April 10, 2006), with a network of services based in Chicago with daily routes to Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Cleveland, St. Louis, Ann Arbor, Columbus, Louisville, Toledo, Detroit, Kansas City, Minneapolis, and State College, Pennsylvania.
On August 8, 2007, Megabus introduced service to the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Tempe, Arizona, using Coach America as a contractor. Service to the Phoenix area was discontinued in January 2008 due to low ridership. Service to downtown San Diego and San Ysidro was discontinued Sunday, March 23, 2008.
In May 2008, as Megabus was about to be introduced from a hub in New York City, the company announced plans to shut down its Los Angeles hub and discontinue all related services, stating that "(I)n this case, the ridership trends aren't growing fast enough." The last day for Megabus services from Los Angeles was June 22, 2008.
While Megabus withdrew from California, it expanded in the Northeast in late May 2008, when Megabus began service from a hub in New York City, with service to Albany, Atlantic City, Baltimore, Boston, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Toronto, and Washington, D.C.. Further expansions included service to Syracuse, Rochester, Hartford and Niagara Falls, Ontario (Niagara Falls and Hartford were later withdrawn). In Spring 2009, while Eastern Shuttle was under Coach USA ownership, runs were added to Megabus under the Eastern Shuttle name, after Coach USA purchased two Chinatown bus companies in late 2008 and early 2009, significantly increasing capacity. Later in 2009, the Megabus concept was expanded to Toronto and Montreal, and the Chinatown bus companies acquired by Coach USA were sold to independent interests. Megabus expanded deeper into Pennsylvania and the Southeast in 2009 and 2010, as the route system evolved from a spoke-and-hub model into a true network.
Read more about this topic: Megabus (North America)
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