To charter a bus is to take part in one of the most popular, efficient, and comfortable ways to travel by land today, and buses are convenient or even essential for those who do not have access to a car or a taxi. In fact, charter bus travel can have benefits beyond driving around passengers who do not have their own cars. Bus travel is fuel efficient, comfortable, widespread, and can even offer comfort and features such as storage for luggage, WiFi, and display screens for movies (depending on the bus line being ridden). Buses have even been used to transport soldiers to and from military compounds and can often be ridden by business professionals who need a short range commute. And of course, buses and shuttle services are central to the tourism and airport industries. What does the industry of buses in the United States look like today?
Buses Then and Now
Buses had their earliest start in 1820s England, when horse drawn buses could carry passeng4ers from one city another, and by the 1830s, steam powered buses in the UK were regularly ferrying around passengers between cities, and the concept soon spread. Now, buses are diesel or even electric powered, and they are often among the most fuel efficient vehicles on land.
Buses can in fact play a major role in the “going green” initiative which calls for, among other things, a reduction in air pollution, which motorcoaches and charter buses can certainly take part in. In fact, a single full motorcoach can remove as many as 55 roads from the car (and all their pollution), and also reduce crowds on American roads today. Buses will create their own exhaust, of course, but it has been found that motorcoaches are fuel efficient vehicles. A full motorcoach can get an impressive 206 passenger miles per gallon, which compares favorably to the 22 passenger miles per gallon and the fuel rates of other land based transportation modes. Charter buses and motorcoaches have also been found to be three times more CO2 efficient than commuter rail, and six times more efficient than simple transit buses.
All of this adds up to an impressive industry that spans the entire United States, and charter buses and motorcoaches are used for almost everything, ranging from commutes in a city to transporting tourist groups to shuttling people to and from airports and sports stadiums. Around 3,4000 different bus and motorcoach companies can be found across the United States today, most of them on the smaller side, and they have a collective pool of nearly 33,400 vehicles used for commuting, airport shuttling, tourism, and more. Motorcoach travel creates a lot of demand for goods and services, and the industry’s production, sales, and repair sectors, employs many Americans, around 792,700 people, and the tourism industry is similarly boosted by motorcoach and charter bus use.
Buses are a key part of any area’s tourism industry. Tourists are unlikely to have brought their own cars or transportation, but a whole group of tourists can conveniently charter a bus to get around together, and such buses often have enough comfort and features to make them a pleasurable way to get around. What do the numbers show? Motorcoaches can infuse a lot of money into local communities based on delivering tourists there, and nearly $11,600 can be generated overnight when a motorcoach or charter bus delivers a load of tourists who will spend money locally on lodgings, dining, attractions, shopping, and more. Something similar can be said about bus travel in a community in general; numerous sectors of the American economy profit when motorcoaches deliver and transport large numbers of people, and in general, $1 spent on a motorcoach will generate $1.65 in revenue, for a total of $1.2 billion spent every single year on tourism and travel.
Many business professionals commuting to work or a business meeting may choose to board a bus, and this can be practical for visiting another part of one’s own city or a nearby urban area. And for about 14 million rural residents, bus travel is practically the only method of intercity travel available, since trains and planes might not go where the passengers need to visit.
