Parent | Variant Equity Advisors |
---|---|
Founded | 1995 |
Headquarters | 160 NJ Route 17 North Paramus, New Jersey 07652 |
Locale | United States |
Service area | New York, Pittsburgh and Chicago metropolitan areas, Southern Tier of New York, southern Wisconsin |
Service type | Local, commuter, charter, contract, and yellow school bus service, Megabus |
Routes | Northeast Division (excluding Megabus):
North Central Division (excluding Megabus and school buses): Contents
Megabus :
|
Operator | Various Coach USA companies, see #Operating companies below |
Chief executive | Derrick Waters |
Website | www |
Coach USA, LLC is a holding company for various American transportation service providers providing scheduled intercity bus service, local and commuter bus transit, city sightseeing, tour, yellow school bus, and charter bus service across the United States and Canada. It is owned by Variant Equity Advisors.
Coach USA traces its history back to 1922 as Lackawanna Bus and later Consolidated Bus Lines, a small outfit operating local service in Bergen County, New Jersey and later along the Jersey Shore and throughout the New York metropolitan area founded by Jim and Denis Gallagher. [1] Community Coach, today the headquarters of Coach USA, began operations in 1958 under Denis's brother, John. The latter took over the operations of Consolidated Bus Lines, using the operating authority of another company that the Gallagher family had purchased in Paramus, New Jersey three years prior; through other acquisitions by the Gallagher family, six of these companies would become subsidiaries of Coach USA at its inception in 1995, when Frank Gallagher sold the firms to Notre Capital Ventures of Houston, TX (https://www.notrecap.com/)
At its inception, Coach USA consisted of six companies: Suburban Trails, Community Coach, Leisure Line, and Adventure Trails in New Jersey, Grosvenor Bus (Gray Line of San Francisco) and Arrow Stage Line in Arizona (not to be confused with unaffiliated Arrow Stage Lines). [2] [3] Listing on the NASDAQ in 1996 under ticker TOUR, and later switching to the New York Stock Exchange under stock ticker CUI, Coach USA, under the leadership of Richard Kristinik, would expand quickly, acquiring Progressive Transportation Services Inc. a contractor of municipal transit systems in Upstate New York. Coach USA acquired additional companies throughout the United States in the next three years to expand to over 5,000 buses and many more taxicabs, as its acquisitions also included yellow cab firms throughout the United States. During this time, the Gallagher family would start another company, Student Transportation of America, based in the area of its Coast Cities operation. [1]
In 1998, Kristinik retired, and Larry King succeeded him. [4] Stagecoach Group would purchase Coach USA in mid-1999 for $1.88 billion. [5]
Under Stagecoach ownership and the helm of Frank Gallagher, the owner of its predecessors, [3] Coach USA sought to continue expansion, but the company, hit hard by the loss of charter business after the September 11 attacks, [2] caused Stagecoach to crash to a loss of over £524 million, at which point Stagecoach, having lost over 70 percent of its investment and now under the leadership of its founder, Brian Souter, after the downturn cost the previous CEO of Stagecoach his job, announced that all of the taxicab operations and most of Coach USA's subsidiaries were for sale, as Stagecoach sought to focus mostly on operations in the northeast, where Coach USA today maintains subsidized transit operations and scheduled service. [6] [7]
Retrenching, Stagecoach sold its companies in New England to Peter Pan Bus Lines. [8] [9] Companies in the Southwest, West, and Rocky Mountain regions were sold to KKR to form Coach America, [10] and companies in the southeastern United States were sold to Lincolnshire Management, rebranded as American Coach Lines (which was merged with Coach America in 2006), [11] [12] all at heavy losses. The contract transit division (Progressive Transportation) was sold to competitor First Transit. [9] [13] As a result of the sale of most of Coach USA's operations, the company's headquarters were relocated from Texas to the Community Coach garage in Paramus, New Jersey. Eight of the sold companies would be reacquired when Coach America declared bankruptcy in 2012, along with Lakefront/Hopkins in Ohio, with the intent of expanding (and in the case of California, reintroducing) the Megabus brand.
Coach USA's operations today consist primarily of scheduled services in the New York and Chicago metropolitan areas, with a number of charter operations near Pittsburgh and scheduled operations in the Southern Tier of New York and southern Wisconsin, along with its Megabus operations throughout the eastern and central United States. In December 2018 Stagecoach announced it had agreed to sell all of its North American operations to Variant Equity Advisors subsidiary Project Kenwood Acquisition with the deal concluded in April 2019. [14] [15] [16] [17] Coach USA closed Chicago Trolley & Double Decker Co. in 2019. Coach USA closed Lakefront Lines in Ohio and Butler Motor Transit and Central Cab in Pennsylvania in 2020, due to the pandemic. [18] [19]
Coach USA includes the following local operating companies: [20] [21]
Megabus is an intercity bus service providing discount travel services since 2006, operating throughout the eastern, southern, midwestern, and western United States and in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Megabus is notable for using curbside bus stops instead of traditional stations, low fares starting at $1, and in recent years, operating a point-to-point network of routes with buses making few stops en route to their destination.
Mobico Group, formerly National Express Group, is a British multinational public transport company with headquarters in Birmingham, England. Domestically it currently operates bus and coach services under brands including National Express. The company also operates transport services including trains abroad: in the Republic of Ireland, United States, Canada, Spain, Portugal, Malta, Germany, Bahrain, and Morocco, and long-distance coach services across Europe.
Greyhound Lines, Inc. (Greyhound) is a company that operates the largest intercity bus service in North America. Services include Greyhound Mexico, charter bus services, and Amtrak Thruway services. Greyhound operates 1,700 coaches produced mainly by Motor Coach Industries and Prevost serving 230 stations and 1,700 destinations. The company's first route began in Hibbing, Minnesota in 1914 and the company adopted the Greyhound name in 1929. The company is owned by Flix North America, Inc., an affiliate of FlixBus, and is based in Downtown Dallas.
Stagecoach Group is a transport group based in Perth, Scotland. It operates buses and express coaches in the United Kingdom.
Scottish Citylink is a long-distance express coach operator in Scotland and Ireland and formerly England. The company was formed as a subsidiary of Scottish Transport Group in March 1985. It is operated as a 63/37 joint venture between ComfortDelGro and Stagecoach.
ComfortDelGro Corporation Limited, commonly known as ComfortDelGro, is a Singaporean multinational land transport conglomerate listed on the Singapore Exchange that operates more than 41,600 vehicles across seven countries. It was formed on 29 March 2003 through a merger of Singaporean land transport companies Comfort Group and DelGro Corporation.
Peter Pan Bus Lines operates an intercity bus service in the Northeastern United States. It is headquartered in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Coach Canada is the Canadian affiliate of Coach USA.
Gray Coach was a Canadian inter-city bus line based in Toronto, Ontario, from 1927 to 1992. It was founded and initially owned by the Toronto Transportation Commission, until sold to Stagecoach in 1990. In 1992 the business was sold to Greyhound Canada and the brand was retired.
An intercity bus service or intercity coach service, also called a long-distance, express, over-the-road, commercial, long-haul, or highway bus or coach service, is a public transport service using coaches to carry passengers significant distances between different cities, towns, or other populated areas. Unlike a transit bus service, which has frequent stops throughout a city or town, an intercity bus service generally has a single stop at one location in or near a city, and travels long distances without stopping at all. Intercity bus services may be operated by government agencies or private industry, for profit and not for profit. Intercity coach travel can serve areas or countries with no train services, or may be set up to compete with trains by providing a more flexible or cheaper alternative.
The Toronto Coach Terminal is a decommissioned bus station for intercity bus services in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The building was the central intercity bus station in Toronto until mid-2021, when it was replaced by the Union Station Bus Terminal. It is located at 610 Bay Street, in the city's downtown. Opened in 1931 as the Gray Coach Terminal, the Art Deco style structure was the main hub for Gray Coach, an interurban coach service then owned by the Toronto Transportation Commission (TTC). It replaced an earlier open air depot, the Union Coach Terminal.
Academy Bus Lines is a bus company in New Jersey providing local bus services in northern New Jersey, line-run services to/from New York City from points in southern and central New Jersey, and contract and charter service in the eastern United States from Boston to Miami. In 2014, Academy acquired Go Buses, which currently operates bus service between Boston and Washington, D.C., and in southern Florida. On September 27, 2023, Academy acquired James River Transportation, which operates in Virginia. Academy is the third-largest motorcoach operator in the United States and Canada.
Trailways of New York is one of the largest privately held transportation companies based in New York State. It employs over 450 people and carries passengers more than 80 million miles annually.
Olympia Trails, also doing business as Megabus Northeast, LLC for the Megabus service that it directly operates, is a bus operator serving northern New Jersey with local and commuter bus service. It also formerly operated as Red & Tan in Hudson County for operations in Hudson County, New Jersey, and also formerly operated ONE/Independent Bus for local bus service in Essex and Union counties in New Jersey. It has been owned by Coach USA since 1998.
First Student, Inc. is a North American provider of school bus services. The company works with districts in 38 states and 7 Canadian provinces, carrying approximately 5M students daily. In addition to its regular routes, First Student also provides special-needs transportation, field trip services, and charter bus rentals.
Coach America, also doing business as American Coach Lines, was a holding company for American bus services owned by New York-based private equity firm Fenway Partners operating under the Coach America, American Coach Lines, and Gray Line names. Coach America consisted of all former Coach USA operations except for the midwestern United States, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New England, along with Lakefront Lines in Ohio. For the nine years of its existence, Coach America was based in Dallas, Texas.
Gray Line Montreal, although a member of the Coach Canada family, is an independently managed operation, that also formerly carried the brand of Stagecoach Montréal. They run a fleet of coaches and double-decker buses in and around Montreal, under the banner of Gray Line Worldwide sightseeing tours, offering city tours and trips to Quebec City. Although departures are mostly at the Dorchester Square/Peel Street location, some of the routes offer hop-on hop-off convenience.
Megabus is an intercity bus service of Coach USA/Coach Canada operating in the eastern, southern, midwestern, western, and Pacific United States and in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. It is the North American service equivalent to the European Megabus.
Bus companies in Ontario range in scale from small family-run businesses to subsidiaries of large international transportation groups. Many operate yellow school buses for student transportation on behalf of local school boards, while others concentrate on luxury coach charters and tours. Some municipalities use these private companies to run their public transit systems.
Megabus is a long-distance intercity coach service operator owned by Scottish Citylink and based in the United Kingdom. Founded by Stagecoach Group in August 2003, it operates using low-cost fares, formerly starting at £1, based on a yield management model.