I took this picture at about 1:20am last night in Chicago...standing outside the train station in windy weather a handful of degrees below freezing, waiting for the midnight bus, which arrived at 1:40am.

The Megabus business model is similar to the Chinatown bus model (but probably not based on it, since Megabus has a bit more history in the UK than it does in North America). No stations, no "local" stops, no relationships with anyone. In theory, it can provide a genuine alternative for "traditional" carriers in the Greyhound system: better buses, lower prices, more on-time arrivals.

Cutting costs doesn't have to mean cutting contingency plans - in fact without stations it would really be best to have better backup plans. But I guess that thought hadn't occurred Megabus. I'll be going back to Greyhound, I think.