In the late 1990s when the first low-fare bus service from Chinatown in New York to Chinatown in Boston started running, few would have expected the impact it would have had on the bus industry as a whole. This was not a service that was marketed to the general public. It was supposed to appeal to a targeted group of people–recent Chinese immigrants–who needed an inexpensive way to travel between the two cities to visit family, shop, or work. The growth of this phenomenon was organic. The general public heard of the Chinatown bus via word of mouth. It caught on quickly and soon the market was flooded with other companies offering similar service on a variety of routes.
It would be incorrect to say that the only reason that these companies succeeded was due to price. Certainly this was the main enticement for travelers. However, it must be said that the service that the traditional bus carriers was offering was ripe for competition. In truth were the full service offerings of the traditional bus companies worth a premium? Hardly. Customer service lacked on every level, bus stations did not offer a comfortable waiting area, buses were often shabby and service...