Stagecoach to fight Big Apple bus tour ruling

Twin America, a joint venture between Stagecoach North America and City Sights, has been told by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) it has created a monopoly over the £62m a year “hop-on, hop-off” bus tour market.

The DoJ claims the venture, formed in 2009, allowed Twin America to hike prices by around 10 per cent for tourists visiting attractions including the Empire State Building, Central Park and Times Square.

Stagecoach, one of the UK’s biggest bus and coach operators with around 8,000 vehicles and 2.5 million passengers every day, said it was “disappointed” by the legal proceedings and would “take all actions to protect their interests”.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said: “The formation of Twin America has meant higher prices and less competition. Tourists who come to the Big Apple deserve better.”

The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, seeks to break up the joint venture or force the sale of some of its assets.

New York City draws around 50 million visitors annually and an estimated two million of these visitors spend more than £62m each year on hop-on, hop-off tours on open-top double-decker buses. The DoJ said that prior to the joint venture, the two firms accounted for roughly 99 per cent of the hop-on, hop-off bus tour market in the city.

Stagecoach’s bus services in Yorkshire cover Hull, Sheffield, Barnsley, Rotherham, Huddersfield, Doncaster, Pontefract and Wakefield and employ more than 1,300 staff.

They operate about 440 vehicles and serve about 57m passengers in Yorkshire annually. The group also runs the Sheffield Supertram, which carries about 15m passengers annually, employs 285 staff and runs 25 trams.