Feb 8, 2008
DC2NY, with its mineral water, free Wi-Fi, and $20 fares, is doing spectacularly between New York and Washington, D.C.
In July of 2007, an executive of the Marriott Hotel Corporation, Richard Green, got permission from his bosses to set up a private business on the side: a classy, hip, but rock-bottom motorcoach operation that would do battle with the Chinatown buses operating between New York City and Washington, D.C. For only a tiny bit more than the Chinatown buses charged, his operation, DC2NY (www.dc2ny.com) would drive you between Gotham and the nation's capital for $40 round-trip (provided you made the booking on the internet), and supply you with a) a bottle of mineral water when boarding, and b) free Wi-Fi for your computer en route.
Sensing something big, I wrote a post about DC2NY without ever having met or talked with Richard Green. Then, this past week, by sheer accident, I met him at an industry function in Washington, D.C. and learned what has since transpired with this non-Chinese outfit doing business in an areas where Chinese-Americans were thought to have the monopoly.
Turns out that DC2NY has done very well, indeed. In 2007, it carried over 34,200 passengers, and spawned a whole industry of new, low-cost bus services operating from various pick-up points in New York City (not just in Chinatown) to various destinations on the east coast: Vamoose, Eastern, DC Tony Express, Washington Deluxe, and others; you can read all about them after searching on Google. "I don't look upon them as competitors," Green told me, "but as collaborators in expanding the market of cost-effective, environmentally-responsible travel."
As for DC2NY, it is about to launch a members' benefits program, and currently is the only service giving its travelers a choice of whether a movie will be shown or not within the bus. It continues to hand out the free mineral water and to make Wi-Fi available. And it has caught the mood of well-educated young people (and older sophisticates) to such an extent that I think we'll soon be hearing more about the extension of America's leading low-cost buses to other routes.
I have written so far about low-cost buses operating in the mid-west, in addition to along the eastern corridor, but I am convinced there must be similar services in other parts of the country. If you know of any, would you alert us to them? It's exciting to find entrepreneurs like Richard Green flinging a challenge to the standard operators of public transportation.
Write and read comments about this post.
Sensing something big, I wrote a post about DC2NY without ever having met or talked with Richard Green. Then, this past week, by sheer accident, I met him at an industry function in Washington, D.C. and learned what has since transpired with this non-Chinese outfit doing business in an areas where Chinese-Americans were thought to have the monopoly.
Turns out that DC2NY has done very well, indeed. In 2007, it carried over 34,200 passengers, and spawned a whole industry of new, low-cost bus services operating from various pick-up points in New York City (not just in Chinatown) to various destinations on the east coast: Vamoose, Eastern, DC Tony Express, Washington Deluxe, and others; you can read all about them after searching on Google. "I don't look upon them as competitors," Green told me, "but as collaborators in expanding the market of cost-effective, environmentally-responsible travel."
As for DC2NY, it is about to launch a members' benefits program, and currently is the only service giving its travelers a choice of whether a movie will be shown or not within the bus. It continues to hand out the free mineral water and to make Wi-Fi available. And it has caught the mood of well-educated young people (and older sophisticates) to such an extent that I think we'll soon be hearing more about the extension of America's leading low-cost buses to other routes.
I have written so far about low-cost buses operating in the mid-west, in addition to along the eastern corridor, but I am convinced there must be similar services in other parts of the country. If you know of any, would you alert us to them? It's exciting to find entrepreneurs like Richard Green flinging a challenge to the standard operators of public transportation.
Write and read comments about this post.
Labels: bus
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