The moment everything stopped, I saw everything clearly
When COVID-19 shut down my motorcoach company in 2020, I found myself with something I hadn't had in 20+ years: time to think. For the first time since buying my first 15-passenger bus at the age of 26, the daily grind came to a halt.
And here's what surprised me most — I didn't miss it.
I didn't miss the 4 AM phone calls about a bus that wouldn't start. I didn't miss shuffling spreadsheets to figure out which driver was where. I didn't miss chasing down faxed credit card authorizations or waiting three weeks for a customer's check to clear. What I missed was the work itself — the experience of helping a group of people travel together and arrive somewhere better than they left. Everything around that work had become noise.
The industry I love, the problems I couldn't ignore
I've been in the motorcoach industry since 1996. I built my first company website in 1997, complete with a simple "get quote" form. Fast forward to 2026, and the vast majority of motorcoach operators still use the same approach: a static form, a phone call back within 24 hours, a PDF quote emailed across, and eventually a deposit check in the mail.
Meanwhile, online brokers continue to dominate search results, relegating local operators to page 2 of Google — which, in commercial terms, means they're practically non-existent. The brokers add a markup, take the lead, and often hand the job off to whichever operator will take it cheapest that week. Customers don't know who is actually picking them up. Operators don't know where the business came from. And the booking experience sits exactly where it did in 2005: painful, opaque, and full of friction.
The "why not me?" moment
Living in Seattle, with two decades of motorcoach operations experience and an interest in how platform businesses work, I realized I was uniquely positioned to help fix this.
My solution wasn't revolutionary — it was evolutionary. Take the Airbnb model and adapt it for motorcoaches. Build a platform that aggregates hard-to-find local bus operators, lets customers compare them by price, ratings, and amenities, and then lets them book seamlessly in one place. No fax machines. No broker phone trees. No "we'll get back to you" black holes.
Customers get transparency and speed. Operators get a modern sales channel that respects their brand. And the industry gets a single front door, rather than thirty disconnected ones.
What we're building at Buslane
For customers. A one-stop shop with transparent pricing, verified reviews, and a modern booking experience backed by the Buslane platform. You know who is picking you up, what the vehicle looks like, and what the total cost will be — before you commit.
For operators. A new sales channel that generates revenue opportunities while automating quotes, follow-ups, and payments. The operator keeps their brand, their pricing discretion, and their customer relationship. We handle the parts of the transaction that don't scale with people.
For the industry. A single platform where customers anywhere in the country can find and book charter buses from local operators, and where operators can run the business side of their company in minutes a day instead of hours.
Looking forward
The future I envision doesn't have static quote forms, faxed credit card authorizations, endless email chains, or waiting on checks. Those will be as outdated as rotary phones.
We're not just building a platform — we're modernizing an industry. The motorcoach industry deserves better tools. Customers deserve a better experience. And operators deserve to focus on what they do best: delivering exceptional service, safely.
That's why Buslane exists. That's why we're excited about the future.
If you have a group to move — a wedding, a corporate offsite, a team travel schedule, a family reunion — start a quote and see how different this can feel.
If you're an operator reading this and you're curious about the operator side of Buslane, I'd love to hear from you directly. Contact us and we'll get a conversation going.
Thanks for reading. This is just the beginning.
— Michael Rogers, Founder & CEO