Authority Requested

The application requests authority to operate as a scheduled PSC to transport passengers and their baggage between San Diego and Los Angeles, and between Los Angeles and San Francisco with stops in San Jose and Oakland. Applicant states that it wants to offer the same type of low cost and high quality transportation services it already offers to residents of several other states. It proposes to operate in California with a fleet of modern, luxurious motorcoaches that will provide express service between downtown areas of major cities, thereby competing not only with other bus services, but with airlines and private automobiles as well. Applicant is confident that the service will attract to bus travel persons who might not normally use that form of transportation to travel between urban centers. Applicant intends to sell its services exclusively over the Internet. By so doing it believes it will be able to keep its costs, and thus its fares, low.

Applicant indicates that it has the financial resources to initiate and sustain the proposed service. It is wholly owned by Independent Bus Company, a New Jersey based bus company, which is owned by Coach USA, Inc. Coach USA is a holding company that owns several bus companies operating in various parts of the United States. Coach USA, in turn, is wholly owned by Stagecoach Group plc, a large, publicly owned entity based in Scotland. Applicant started operations as a separate entity in August 2006, and therefore does not yet have sufficient financial data to provide a meaningful income statement and balance sheet. Any financial support Applicant needs will come from its parent, Stagecoach Group, which for the year ending April 30, 2006, had revenues of $3.1 billion and as of that date assets of $2.6 billion.