Chinatown Bus Lines - History

History

The first company to offer such services was the Fung Wah Bus, which began routes between New York City and Boston in 1998. The bus services originally transported ethnic Chinese restaurant workers to and from jobs in Boston, Atlantic City, Washington and other cities. As word of them spread, they became more popular with non-Chinese bargain-hunting travellers, many of them young. Now, some bus lines are also used to transport large groups of mainly Chinese and Vietnamese immigrants to and from casinos such as Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, which are located in Connecticut. These gambling buses built upon the popularity of older bus routes to Atlantic City that also targeted Asian American customers.

Given their relatively competitive fares to the mainstream Greyhound Lines, it has become popular among non-Chinese customers as well, especially students. Recently, competition has come from Megabus and DC Trails, under the Washington Deluxe and Vamoose brands, along with other companies. Incidentally, two of the operations were recently brought under Megabus operation, with the purchase of Eastern Shuttle and Today's Bus.

Increasing popularity has also led to increasing regulatory interest. In September 2004, the city of Boston required all regularly scheduled intercity bus services to operate exclusively to and from the South Station transportation terminal. Steven Bailey of The Boston Globe suggested that the move was motivated by Peter Pan's and Greyhound's interest in maintaining their monopoly on the New York-Boston bus route, and Timothy Shevlin, executive director of the state Department of Telecommunications and Energy, said, "The big dog out there, Peter Pan, is dead set against Chinatown bus lines. They don't want that kind of competition." A complication with this arrangement was that the South Station bus terminal has only 25 gates (along with two departure gates), all of which were used at the time until other companies left.