We are Ben and Caleb

In real life, we are Ben and Caleb. Here we are in our truest form, mirrored in a Buster vehicle:

We’re the vendor operations team at Buster. That means we are the people who meet with every charter company Buster works with, and step on board all the vehicles you might ride on with Buster. We are the ones making sure your luxury limo seats are the finest Italian leather and your school bus 100% satisfies your nostalgic expectations.

Most importantly though, we are people. We respond to every customer inquiry personally, because booking buses, limos, and vans is not that simple, and we are here to help. We think about buses all day, so you don’t have to.

More about us

Some day, Caleb aspires to be Punderdome Champion of the World (official title), and Ben just wants to run the world. We spent our first couple years at Buster on the road, meeting and signing up charter companies, kicking tires, and making sure you only get the finest vehicles when you book. We’ve been inside, photographed, and okayed all Buster vehicles, so if you have any questions about vehicles, or how Buster works, just ask.

Bonus points: If you can find more outlines of us in any other Buster photos, we’ll give you 10% off your next Buster trip! Just tell us in the chat box.

With the ever-changing landscape of the COVID-19 epidemic, we continue to adapt our operations and business to address all aspects of the health and safety of our customers, vendor partners, and employees. We are in constant contact with our vendor partners and continue to maintain the most effective cleaning procedures according to guidelines presented by the CDC and other organizations.

As we all work to stabilize emergency operations and protocols, many have already begun to turn to us and ask questions. What happens when events are cancelled? How can we source clean and safe group transportation if necessary? What happens if flights are not available and we must get essential teams to locations?

The good news is, we have answers and solutions. We’re here to help and we’re absolutely committed to keeping our customers, drivers, and cleaning crews safe during this crisis. Read on for more information about the steps our vendor partners take to help keep you safe and healthy while riding in shared spaces including reducing the number of travelers on each motorcoach/bus.

How do our vendor partners help protect customers and drivers?

While each vendor has their own detailed process for cleaning their vehicles, here are some of the basic precautions generally taken for your safety, health and wellness.

The bus cleaning staff have been advised to focus attention when cleaning the areas and touch points listed below with soap and water and spraying with disinfectant each time a motorcoach returns from a charter. Drivers should wipe down these same surfaces with disinfectant wipes during the day for multi-day charters. Drivers should ensure hand sanitizer and cleaning supplies are available on every charter.

• Handrails for entering and exiting the vehicle
• Arm rests
• Driver steering wheel
• Dash area
• Head rest
• Windowsills
• Restroom door handles
• Restroom handrails
• Vehicle sprayed well with Lysol disinfectant spray or similar product on a regular basis
• Baggage door handles interior as well as exterior
• Have Sani-wipes available on vehicles for operator and passenger usage

Next Steps?

We continue to monitor communications from the CDC, USDOT, FMCSA, TSA, the President’s Task Force, and others as the situation evolves.

Contact our team of transportation experts to discuss your needs. They will find the solutions to ensure you have the service to avoid any delays or disruption to get the job done.

We know you have many choices when selecting a transportation partner. We greatly appreciate your loyalty and trust. If you have questions or concerns about future travel or reservations you’ve already made, please don’t hesitate to contact our team.

(800) 215-9154
support@busterprod.wpengine.com

Stay safe and well!

Updated: Thursday, March 19, 2020

Today, finding and booking a bus is difficult and time-intensive, whether you’re an office intern planning the annual outing to the ballpark or a professional wedding planner who needs shuttles and party buses every week.

The difficulties come from the current fragmentation in the market: today, there are 3,264 bus companies in the United States and Canada operating more than 38,000 coach buses. But only 22 of them have more than 100 buses, meaning there’s no single online destination you can visit and reliably find a bus, regardless of your needs. Most people’s bus-booking experience involves conducting a frantic Google search, visiting several companies’ websites, making a handful of phone calls, and sometimes waiting days or even weeks to get quotes to compare.

Obviously, that’s not ideal.

What the Acquisition Means for Customers

Now that Buster and BusBank are joining forces, the frustration and confusion that used to be a part of trying to book group travel from a trusted company is over.

BusBank has thousands of bus operators in its system whose vehicles customers can reserve. Now, they’ll be able to do that online in a matter of minutes, thanks to Buster’s backend technology. Customers of both BusBank and Buster will have access to more vehicles than ever before, and they’ll all benefit from Buster’s easy three-step reservation system:

• Enter itinerary details.
• Choose your vehicle.
• View availability (in real time!) and make a reservation.

In other words, the acquisition means that customers can expect booking a bus to be a lot more like reserving a rental car or buying an airline ticket: online, fast, and simple. A process that once took weeks now takes 10 minutes or less.

And if your request is complicated or multi-faceted, don’t worry: you’ll still be able to talk to the account service specialists who have been providing BusBank’s excellent customer service since its founding.

What the Acquisition Means for Operator Partners

Operators who list their vehicles on Buster will enjoy the same process for accepting jobs: they’ll get emails alerting them to available trips in the Exchange, then claim jobs according to their availability. The major difference is that there will be more bookings available, meaning more opportunity to earn money. That’s thanks to the thousands of BusBank customers operators will now have access to.

BusBank operators will enjoy the same service from the team they know and trust, but, again, with access to more bookings. They’ll also be able to take advantage of Buster’s technology, which will let them accept bookings, review their booking history, and update their fleet information online.

All operator partners will have access to the top-tier operator relations team that has served BusBank customers consistently over the years.

Better Group Travel Options for Everyone

For years now, most people have known where to go online to book individual travel and which brands they trust to provide safe rides and excellent service.

Thanks to the BusBank acquisition of Buster, people will now have a single online destination for booking group travel, whether they need a couple shuttles for a family wedding or daily shuttle transportation for a corporate workforce, or providing transportation for a national music festival.  

The two companies couldn’t be better positioned to make easy group travel a reality: in addition to Buster’s proven tech platform, its leadership team includes former Priceline executives, whose experience in the online travel space can’t be beaten. As for BusBank, it has supported successful bus trips and large events throughout North America for almost two decades.

Customers can expect the following from group travel reservations made through BusBank or Buster:

• A full vehicle suite with nationwide coverage. This includes coach buses, SUVs, Sprinter vans, luxury buses, yellow school buses, and party buses.
• On-call account service specialists who can help plan and execute travel events.
• Instant price quotes you see within seconds of entering your needs. And all trips can be changed or canceled up to one week ahead of your event.
• Reputable, safe vehicles. All operators available through the Buster and BusBank platforms are thoroughly vetted to ensure they meet US Department of Transportation safety and insurance standards. Operators are required to own and maintain their vehicles.
• Proactive event management.  Account service specialists coordinate with operators ahead of your event to make sure all details have been communicated and all vehicles will be on time.

The combined forces of BusBank and Buster will make group travel easier throughout North America, both for those in the passenger seats and those operating the buses. We look forward to seeing you on the road!

A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE

Back when Buster was a wee little roadster, it had big dreams of breaking down the barriers of the charter bus industry and shepherding it into the digital age. The company was established in 2012, gained momentum in 2015 with its operator partnerships and investments, and went national in 2016, so fasten your seat belts because Buster has a lot in store for 2017! New logo, new look, new easy-to-read results page, new lower pricing, and tools that will solve your booking woes.

THE INDUSTRY IS STUCK IN THE PAST

As many of you may already know from booking ground transportation, the pre-Buster industry was stuck in the dial-up days in terms of technology. It could turn into a full time job with all the calling, leaving voicemails, waiting for e-mailed quotes, and reconfirming trip details. Even if you were lucky enough to actually speak with a human, there were still irrational pricing discrepancies and hidden fees leaving you confused and exhausted from the process.

ENTER BUSTER

Buster is an online booking platform for group ground transportation – think Expedia for buses, limos, and vans. Operators across the U.S. input their fleet and pricing information, and the Buster booking platform works its magic to give you instant vehicle options and pricing that match your specific itinerary. No more cash, quote forms, or phone calls necessary.

Check out how easy it is:

WHAT THE BUSTER TEAM IS WORKING ON TODAY

From shuttling options to mobile friendly technology – your voices have been heard! Your experience with Buster is what helps shape the direction of the website, and the team is working hard to put those features and functionality in place so you can overhaul the way you book travel – saving an incredible amount of time and money.

Buster’s new look fits in well with the service it offers – a streamlined approach to helping people mobilize. Whether you are a professional wedding planner or the friend that volunteered to organize a trip to the game, you can begin your search with the same tool at busterprod.wpengine.com/plan.

Brides and Grooms – not so sure where to begin planning shuttles for your guests coming from different hotels at various times? The shuttling tool is getting its finishing touches in the shop and will give you a sigh of relief when you can build out those more detailed trips all online, even from your phone if you prefer! That technology is revolutionary in the online travel industry, so stay tuned for the announcement of that feature and follow Buster’s social channels to keep up with the evolution of the platform.

Happy Travels!

Two weeks ago, we announced our first Buster artist collaboration, a sticker by Hiller Goodspeed. Hiller is an illustrator out of Vancouver you might know from his 2010 project, E.D.P.E.D. The sticker is a simple start to an aspiration we have as we grow — to support artists doing cool things, and find fresh ways to see group transportation.

Right now the visual landscape on this topic is pretty gross. Your typical image of group transportation tends to look like this:

But we see another vision. For us, it’s not about buses. It’s about moving people to create great experiences. And in reality, it’s a beautiful thing.

Every day we work toward that goal as we work on our core product. We improve our search tools constantly, and we’re always bringing more of the industry online, seeking transparency and access for customers. Beyond that, we aspire to move people not just physically – but with a story about traveling and experiencing things together. That’s why we’re beginning an effort to encourage original artwork that tells a new story about group travel.

Long term, we’re hoping there will be a diverse, inspiring array of images that show group travel in a new light. Short term, we’ll keep creating them one at a time.

Postscript: If you’re an artist, and you’d like to work with us on an original piece for this project, please get in touch!

It’s a monthly meet-up of creative, entrepreneurial women (a #girlboss network, if you’re into that). It’s not a snooze-fest networking event – more like a really good dinner party at your friend’s house where she invited all her interesting, driven friends you secretly follow on Twitter and Instagram. Hatch came to my attention this past fall, when I was vigorously googling unconventional women-in-business groups to find myself a bigger “tribe”, as they say.

It was a gruelingly boring process most of the time, attending networking events to scope out the scene, but I actually had fun and learned at Hatch. So I asked Jess, the co-founder, how Buster could help. And we found a way…

Next Wednesday, Buster is hosting Hatch’s last event of the season, a Q&A session on financial planning for creatives. It’s free, and smart, experienced people will explain things to you about money. If you’re thinking about starting your own venture in 2016, they’re things you need to know. So read all about it, RSVP, and come say hi while you’re here.

Let’s Talk

And if you, like me, are a woman looking to meet other powerhouse females in tech, business, and creative fields, or you’re someone who runs some kind of group for such women – let’s talk. We’re committed to opening our space and our team at Buster HQ to beautiful minds like these.

Postscript: After closing this successful season of events, Hatch is going to be quickly morphing into a new stage, focused on storytelling – Hatch Stories. Keep an eye on that. It promises to be worth watching.

We’re so excited that we’re cosponsoring the next NYC Cyclones event, a trip to the legendary Staten Island Roller Jam Skate Rink for a fabulous skating party night on January 30th. Check it out, and come along for the ride! You’ll find us on the rink, doing our best Saturday Night Fever.