Megabus |
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Official Site: megabus.com
Wikipedia: Megabus (North America) |
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History
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History
The following section is an excerpt from Wikipedia's Megabus (North America) page on 16 February 2021, text available via the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Megabus, branded as megabus.com, is an intercity bus service of Coach USA/Coach Canada and DATTCO (under contract) operating in the eastern, southern, midwestern and western United States, and in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec.
Some tickets, if purchased well in advance, are priced as low as $1, with occasional free promotions, in addition to an online booking fee of $2.50 per transaction. Megabus follows the yield management model, typically used by airlines, where the lowest fares are offered to those who book early. Only one or two seats are sold for $0 or $1 per schedule, so the less popular schedules tend to be less expensive. Bus stops may be in public streets, bus stations, outside railroad stations or transportation centers in major cities, or on college campuses or at shopping centers in other cities.
Upon purchase of a ticket, passengers are given a reservation number to be shown to the bus operator upon boarding. In the United States, tickets are not available from the bus operator. In Canada, owing to franchise regulations, tickets are sold at stops but may be more expensive than those purchased online.
On April 10, 2006, Stagecoach Group, operator of Megabus (Europe), introduced the Megabus brand in the United States through its Coach USA subsidiary with daily routes between Chicago and Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Cleveland, St Louis, Ann Arbor, Columbus, Louisville, Toledo, Detroit, Kansas City, Minneapolis and State College.
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. In its first foray into California, ridership was sluggish and Megabus started to discontinue services from Los Angeles in early 2008. Service to the Phoenix area was discontinued in January 2008, followed by services in San Diego and San Ysidro in March 2008. In May 2008, Megabus made the decision to shut down service to/from Los Angeles and discontinue all related services. The final day for services from Los Angeles was June 22, 2008. Megabus re-entered the market in 2012 after reacquiring some of the assets of Coach America, which had been part of Coach USA prior to a major divestiture in 2003.
In late May 2008, Megabus began service to/from New York City, with service to/from 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 although service to Hartford resumed in 2010.
Megabus returned to the West Coast on December 12, 2012 initially serving San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Sacramento, Reno, Riverside and Los Angeles. On its west coast routes, Megabus operates almost exclusively from either commuter rail stations or transfer stations for local transit buses.
In April 2019, Stagecoach Group sold its North American operations, including Megabus, to Variant Equity Advisors.
| Date | Article | Author/Source |
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| 26 May 2016 | New Orleans Man Pleads Guilty in Conspiracy to Traffic Heroin Using Megabus  | U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Louisiana |
| 23 June 2016 | New Orleans Man Pleads Guilty in Conspiracy to Traffick Heroin Using Megabus | U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Louisiana |
| 7 July 2016 | Houston Woman Pleads Guilty in Conspiracy to Traffick Heroin Using Megabus | U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Louisiana |
| 21 December 2016 | Texas Man Pleads Guilty to Falsely Reporting Shooting Threat on Megabus | U.S. Attorney’s Office, Western District of Tennessee |
| 13 July 2017 | New Orleans Man Sentenced for Heroin Trafficking via Megabus | U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Louisiana |