Megabus transported 70 passengers out of Holyoke south as far as New York City in its 1st week.
HOLYOKE – British import Megabus has pulled into the Holyoke Transportation Center, right in the back yard of Springfield’s Peter Pan Bus Lines which has its low-cost bus brand: BoltBus.
Both BoltBus and Megabus offer fares for as little as $1 on a first-come first-serve basis to customers, most of them college students or young adults, who book online. Both bus lines offer free wi-fi wireless Internet service.
Buses depart Holyoke seven days a week at 5:05 a.m., 2:35 p.m. and 9:35 p.m. and arrive at 7th Avenue and 28th Street near Penn Station in New York City 3 hours and 35 minutes after departure. Return trips from New York City depart West Side of 9th Avenue between 31st Street and 33rd Street in New York City at 9:20 a.m., 4:20 p.m. and 9:20 p.m., according to Megabus’ timetables.
Megabus transported 70 passengers out of Holyoke south as far as New York City in its first week, said Dennis S. Lyons, vice president of coach and tour operations for New Britain, Conn.-based DATTCO Inc. DATTCO’s Megabus service from Amherst south to Hartford and New York began in the middle of December and is now averaging more than 400 riders a week, Lyons said in a phone interview this week.
“We haven’t done much marketing there yet,” Lyons said. Besides Holyoke and Amherst, DATTCO also operates Megabus lines in Providence, R.I., Hartford and Storrs, Conn., home of the University of Connecticut.
Lyons said DATTCO likes Holyoke in part because of the new transportation center.
The $9 million transportation hub opened Sept. 27 in the former Fire Department headquarters on Maple Street across from Veterans Park. The center has buses from Megabus, Pioneer Valley Transit Authority intracity bus service and Peter Pan Bus Lines service throughout the Northeast. The center also has pre-school and daycare facilities and adult education programs provided by Holyoke Community College.
Lyons said Holyoke is a good location to attract students at other colleges and universities, including Westfield State University.
“We obviously do a big student business,” Lyons said.
DATTCO is one of several bus companies around the country that operate Megabus-brand buses. The company came to the United States in 2008, around the same time Peter Pan and Greyhound started their BoltBus low-cost brand.
Robert J. Schwarz, vice president of Peter Pan Bus Lines, said his company is looking for opportunities to expand BoltBus, but at this time is concentrating on the more heavily traveled Boston-Washington, D.C., corridor.
Lyons said the airlines, Amtrak and especially private autos are the real competition, not Peter Pan and BoltBus.
“Typically less than 15 percent of our ridership is coming from some other bus line,” he said.
The cheapest tickets on Bolt and Megabus sell first with prices rising as the trip gets closer. Lyons said the average fare for Holyoke to New York City costs $6.50.
“It’s a model built on the concept that volume covers the expenses,” he said. “It’s what the airlines have been doing, it’s what the hotels have been doing.”