Capping a year-long investigation, the Transportation Department shut down a network of 26 East Coast and Midwest bus operators in what it described as “largest single safety crackdown in the agency’s history.”
The DOT said its Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration shut down three primary companies — Apex Bus, I-95 Coach and New Century Travel — that oversaw “a broad network” of entities that carried over 1,800 passengers a day along Interstate 95 from New York to Florida.
The DOT said the companies are based in Georgia, Indiana, Maryland, New York, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
Included were nine active bus operators, 13 companies already ordered out of service that were continuing to operate, one ticket seller and three companies attempting to apply for operating authority. The DOT said the companies posed “imminent hazards to public safety.”
In addition, the DOT ordered ten individual owners, managers and employees to cease all passenger transportation operations, which includes selling bus tickets to passengers.
The DOT said investigators found multiple safety violations, including the use of unlicensed drivers and vehicles that were not regularly inspected and repaired, and the failure to implement required drug and alcohol testing for drivers.
The companies’ drivers also had “serious hours-of-service and driver-qualification violations,” the DOT said.