IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/pal/palchp/978-1-349-08624-5_4.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

The Early Growth of Long-Distance Bus Transport in the United States

In: The Economic and Social Effects of the Spread of Motor Vehicles

Author

Listed:
  • Margaret Walsh

Abstract

Bus transport in the United States started in the second decade of this century when numerous entrepreneurs in all parts of the country operated local services between near-by communities using automobile sedans. Encouraged by their early success, ambitious pioneers built up longer networks by connecting their routes to those of like-minded venturers and by acquiring more reliable and comfortable vehicles. For those who could meet the requirements of state government regulations and withstand the competition from both railroads and other bus operators, prospects looked good. By the late 1920s the possibility of national lines suggested increased business; but the onset of the Great Depression forced reorganisation in the burgeoning and highly competitive industry. Many small carriers went out of business when passengers and revenue declined, while the larger companies had to restructure their operations to reduce costs at the same time as improving services. Federal regulation of motor carriers in the mid-1930s strengthened the position of surviving and larger companies who were able to retain their trade. By the end of the decade long-distance bus travel was established as a permanent and important part of the nation’s economy.

Suggested Citation

  • Margaret Walsh, 1987. "The Early Growth of Long-Distance Bus Transport in the United States," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Theo Barker (ed.), The Economic and Social Effects of the Spread of Motor Vehicles, chapter 4, pages 81-96, Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Handle: RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-349-08624-5_4
    DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-08624-5_4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-349-08624-5_4. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.