Seth Kugel for The New York Times





I’m an ideal customer for all of those low-cost bus lines that run from New York to Boston and Washington and Philadelphia: I don’t own a car. I’m cheapskate by both nature and by trade. And I have good reasons to visit two of the three cities from my home in New York — my parents live outside Boston and my brother’s family lives outside Washington. If a brain injury transformed me into a Phillies fan, I’d have the trifecta.

So how do you choose among these bus companies that have proliferated in the last decade, especially given all their promises of brand new buses, $1 fares and free Wi-Fi?

Over the last few weeks, I put seven of them to the test:

I WorldWideBused into Manhattan from Boston after Thanksgiving, Greyhounded it back in mid-December to do an article, FungWahing it to New York afterward. Then I Megabused it down to Washington one afternoon to take my nephews out to dinner before Trippering the return route the next morning; and finally Bolted back to Boston to attend a post-Christmas chocolate-tasting party hosted by old friends before LuckyStarring it back to Manhattan.

First, an overview: This is not your father’s Greyhound. For the most part, the buses are incredibly pleasant, dirt cheap and full of bonuses like free bottled water and electrical outlets by the seats. They run on time from convenient locations, making them practically as fast as airplanes at a fraction of the cost and a microscopic speck of a fraction of the hassle.

Now, onto the details.

PRICE

Tripper, Bolt and Megabus offer $1 tickets to those who reserve well in advance. So if you book a month in ahead of time and don’t need to travel on a Friday or Sunday, you can often swipe one. (Lucky Star advertises $1 on its Web site and a spokesman claimed they do exist, but I couldn’t find any even months ahead.)

Once the $1 tickets are gone, prices creep up, maxing out between $20 and $25 at the most competitive times on the most popular days. Meanwhile, Fung Wah and Lucky Star, the two so-called “Chinatown buses”, always charge $15 no matter what, so if price is your only concern, they’re the best for a last-minute trip. Trips on Greyhound (which partners with Peter Pan on these routes) can also be as low as $14 if you buy online in advance.

Some of the companies have frequent-rider programs. Bolt gives you one free trip for every eight you take (imagine if you take eight $1 trips and then cash in for a free $20 trip!) and Tripper gives you the fifth trip free.

COMFORT

There is no huge difference between bus lines here, although after reading all the hype about Greyhound’s sleek new fleet, I was disappointed to be stuck on a worn-out old Peter Pan bus. And since I find the neon-patterned seat covers on many buses so nauseating, BoltBus won my eternal gratitude for having plain black seats.

The only time I felt truly uncomfortable over seven trips was when the Lucky Star bus pulled over at a highway rest stop on I-95 in Connecticut and half the passengers came back with bags from McDonald’s, making the bus smell as if it had just been dipped in a fryolator. None of the other buses made stops, so if you love McDonald’s and can’t sit still for four hours, the Lucky Star pit stop may actually be a positive.

Seth Kugel for The New York Times

CHECKIN

The Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City is a miserable place, though not nearly as miserable as some bus stations in other cities. If there were such a thing as a Nobel Bus Prize, it would have to go to whoever suddenly realized: who needs ’em? For that matter, who needs tickets? Bolt, Megabus, Tripper and WorldWide do their pickups curbside in Midtown; you can flash your reservation number from a smartphone if you didn’t have sufficient time or cartridge ink to print out your reservation. Fung Wah and Lucky Star leave from Chinatown streets; just bring a printout. And your umbrella. (In Boston, where curbside boarding is prohibited, most buses leave from South Station, which is actually pretty nice; Worldwide Bus leaves from Alewife Station in Cambridge and Riverside Station in Newton. Washington is a mixed bag, with stops both at its mediocre bus terminal and in other locations.)

The big loser here is Greyhound/Peter Pan, which still requires that you trudge downstairs into the depths of Port Authority with a printout of your boarding pass. At least you can print it at machines in the station, unless the machines happen to be broken when you’re there and you end up stuck in line for the lone ticket agent just as she begins a protracted conversation with a customer trying to figure out a way to get to Georgia with the insufficient amount of money he has to his name. (Luckily, I had arrived early, or I might have missed the bus.)

LAPTOP READINESS

They all try, but few succeed: getting the Internet to work in a moving bus full of bandwidth hogs turns out to be tricky business. The clear winner: Bolt, which during my ride had a strong signal throughout despite ferrying passengers with enough iPhones and MacBooks to cause you to sell your Dell stock immediately. Bolt also provided outlets, but not for every seat or even every row; WorldWide came through best with one-outlet-per-seat policy and with decent Internet. Fung Wah and Lucky Star promised Internet service but did not deliver at all. Greyhound’s wireless was weak, and Tripper’s Internet worked so devastatingly slowly, I had flashbacks to 1990s dial-up connections.

DRIVERS

I had no complaints about any of the drivers, who were all professional and had a dizzying array of accents. But my World Wide Bus driver, named Igor, stood out by constantly calling other bus drivers to check on traffic ahead or to update the ones behind.

Seth Kugel for The New York Times

PERFORMANCE UNDER PRESSURE

Unlike almost every other traveler whose schedule was disrupted by last week’s snowstorm, I was delighted to be traveling. It would give me a chance to see how the bus companies would react under stress.

I had a ticket reserved from Boston to New York on Lucky Star last Monday, the very day that all companies canceled their buses. I am happy to report that all companies also dutifully posted the news on their Web sites – except Lucky Star. So, after about a dozen calls to its number did not go through, I went to South Station and found a note at their service counter. Canceled. Thanks, guys.

This was strikingly different from World Wide and Megabus, both of whom either called, texted or e-mailed their customers to keep them up to date and advise them of how to reschedule, according to their press people and the lack of lines at the terminal. Bolt automatically refunded all passengers whose trips were canceled and added as many buses as possible to allow rebooking. In fact, everyone did a better job than Lucky Star, as evidenced the next morning at South Station, where Megabus, Bolt and Fung Wah seemed to be operating normally; Greyhound had a huge line, but it moved quickly and staff members roamed through it to answer questions. Meanwhile, the Lucky Star line stretched into the hundreds with a mix of people with e-tickets (like me) and people who wanted to buy tickets.

THE UPSHOT

The pricing revolution that started out with a few Chinatown buses has now given us a fairly reliable way to travel. Even, occasionally, after a blizzard.

Readers: I’d love to hear about your own experiences with these companies, and even better, from the handful of companies I did not get to try out.