Coach USA, LLC is a

holding company A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own shares of other companies ...

for various American transportation service providers providing scheduled intercity bus service, local and commuter bus transit, city sightseeing, tour, yellow

school bus A school bus is any type of bus owned, leased, contracted to, or operated by a school or school district. It is regularly used to transport students to and from school or school-related activities, but not including a charter bus or transit bus ...

, and charter bus service across the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

. It is owned by Variant Equity Advisors.

History

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 Bergen County is the most populous county in the U.S. state of New Jersey.New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delawa ...

and later along the

Jersey Shore The Jersey Shore (known by locals simply as the Shore) is the coastal region of the U.S. state of New Jersey. Geographically, the term encompasses about of oceanfront bordering the Atlantic Ocean, from Perth Amboy in the north to Cape May P ...

and throughout the

New York metropolitan area The New York metropolitan area, also commonly referred to as the Tri-State area, is the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban area, urban landmass, at , and one of the list of most populous metropolitan areas, most populous urban agg ...

founded by Jim and Denis Gallagher.

Community Coach Community Coach is a bus operator in northern New Jersey owned by Coach USA, operating fixed route and charter service. Routes Directly controlled Community Coach, as Community Transit Lines, operates a single line run from the Port Authority Bu ...

, 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. At its inception, Coach USA consisted of six companies: Suburban Trails,

, Leisure Line, and Adventure Trails in New Jersey, Gray Line of

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

and Arrow Stage Line in

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

(not to be confused with unaffiliated Arrow Stage Lines). Listing on the

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

in 1996 under ticker TOUR, and later switching to the

New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its liste ...

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 Upstate New York is a geographic region consisting of the area of New York (state), New York State that lies north and northwest of the New York metropolitan area, New York City metropolitan area. Although the precise boundary is debated, Upsta ...

. 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. In 1998, Kristinik retired, and Larry King succeeded him.

Stagecoach Group Stagecoach Group is a transport group based in Perth, Scotland. It operates buses, express coaches and a tram service in the United Kingdom. History Stagecoach was born out of deregulation of the British express coach market in the early ...

would purchase Coach USA in mid-1999 for $1.88 billion. Under Stagecoach ownership and the helm of Frank Gallagher, the owner of its predecessors, Coach USA sought to continue expansion, but the company, hit hard by the loss of charter business after the

September 11, 2001 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...

, 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 The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sep ...

, where Coach USA today maintains subsidized transit operations and scheduled service. Retrenching, Stagecoach sold its companies in

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

Peter Pan Bus Lines Peter Pan Bus Lines operates an intercity bus service in the Northeastern United States. It is headquartered in Springfield, Massachusetts. It operates service to/from to Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Hamps ...

.Coach USA sell-offs keep strategy on track '' On Stage'' issue 51 July 2003 page 4 Companies in the Southwest,

West West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

, and

Rocky Mountain The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico in ...

regions were sold to

KKR KKR & Co. Inc., also known as Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., is an American global investment company that manages multiple alternative asset classes, including private equity, energy, infrastructure, real estate, credit, and, through its strateg ...

to form Coach America, 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), all at heavy losses. The contract transit division (Progressive Transportation) was sold to competitor First Transit. As a result of the sale of most of Coach USA's operations, the company's headquarters were relocated from

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

to the

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 Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...

, with the intent of expanding (and in the case of

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, reintroducing) the Megabus brand. Coach USA's operations today consist primarily of scheduled services in the

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

and

Chicago metropolitan area The Chicago metropolitan area, also colloquially referred to as Chicagoland, is a metropolitan area in the Midwestern United States. Encompassing 10,286 sq mi (28,120 km2), the metropolitan area includes the city of Chicago, its suburbs and hin ...

s, with a number of charter operations near

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

and scheduled operations in the

Southern Tier The Southern Tier is a geographic subregion of the broader Upstate New York region of New York State, consisting of counties west of the Catskill Mountains in Delaware County and geographically situated along or very near the northern border ...

of New York and southern

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

, 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. 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 A pandemic () is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has spread across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. A widespread endemic disease with a stable number of in ...

Operating companies

Coach USA includes the following local operating companies: *All West Coachlines ( Sacramento, CA /

Reno, NV Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada-California border, about north from Lake Tahoe, known as "The Biggest Little City in the World". Known for its casino and tourism industry, Reno is the ...

) *American Coach Lines of Atlanta/Megabus Southeast (

Atlanta, GA Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

) * Coach Canada ( Toronto, ON) *Coach Erie ( Erie, PA) *Coach USA Airport Express ( Waukesha, WI) *Coach USA Elko ( Elko, NV) *

(

Paramus, NJ Paramus ( Waggoner, Walter H ''The New York Times'', February 16, 1966. Accessed October 16, 2018. "Paramus – pronounced puh-RAHM-us, with the accent on the second syllable – may have taken its name from 'perremus' or 'perymus,' Indian for ...

) *Country Road Tours (

Clarksburg, WV Clarksburg is a city in and the county seat of Harrison County, West Virginia, United States, in the north-central region of the state. The population of the city was 16,039 at the 2020 census. It is the principal city of the Clarksburg micr ...

) *Dillon's Bus Service ( Hanover, MD) *Gad-About Tours ( Pittsburgh, PA) * Gray Line Montreal ( Montreal, QC) * Gray Line New York Sightseeing (

New York, NY New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

) *Kerrville Bus Company/Megabus Southwest (

San Antonio, TX ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , subdivision_t ...

) *Lenzner Coach Lines ( Sewickley, PA) *Mountaineer Coach ( Beaver, WV) * Olympia Trails/Megabus Northeast (

Elizabeth, NJ Elizabeth is a city and the county seat of Union County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.Ne ...

) *Powder River Transportion (

Gillette, WY Gillette (, '' jih-LET'') is a city in and the county seat of Campbell County, Wyoming, United States. The town was founded in 1891 as a major railway town on the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. The population was estimated at 32,030 as ...

) * Rockland Coaches ( Westwood, NJ) * Short Line Bus ( Chester, NY) *Pacific Coast Sightseeing Tour and Charters/Megabus West ( Anaheim, CA)Coach USA bus drivers, mechanics vote against joining union, 118 to 73
/ref> * Suburban Transit ( New Brunswick, NJ) * Van Galder Bus Company ( Janesville, WI) *Wisconsin Coach Lines ( Waukesha, WI)

Megabus

Megabus Megabus may refer to: * Megabus (Europe), a low-cost coach service with services in Europe owned by ComfortDelGro. * Megabus (North America), a low-cost bus service in the United States and Canada owned by Variant Equity Advisors. * Megabús, a ...

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.

References

External links

*
Megabus USA
{{DEFAULTSORT:Coach Usa Bus companies of the United States Bus transportation in Illinois Bus transportation in Wisconsin Companies based in Bergen County, New Jersey Transport companies established in 1995 Gray Line Worldwide Intercity bus companies of the United States Surface transportation in Greater New York 1995 establishments in the United States Transportation companies based in New Jersey

History

Operating companies

Megabus

See also

References

External links