Suburban Express

Suburban Express is a bus service that provides transport services to students at six universities in the American Midwest, primarily to and from the Chicago area. Airport shuttles are operated under the name "Illini Shuttle". The company contracts buses from other carriers, and is based in Champaign, Illinois.

In the 1980s, Suburban Express broke the bus monopoly that Greyhound had between Champaign and Chicago leading to a price war that cut student fares by more than half.

Since 1994, it has filed at least 200 lawsuits over alleged violations of its terms of service, leading students to criticize the bus service online.

History

Suburban Express began operating in late 1983. At that time, scheduled bus service between Champaign and the Chicago area in Illinois was a monopoly operated by Greyhound Lines, and reinforced by exclusive ticket sales through the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (UIUC). Between November and December 1983, Greyhound Lines suffered a nationwide strike by its drivers. For the Thanksgiving break during the Greyhound strike,Dennis Toeppen, then a 19-year-old student at UIUC, and later Suburban Express' founder, chartered 6 buses, sold tickets through a local travel agent, spent $600 on advertising, and undercut Greyhound's fares by $4 to $8. The Thanksgiving 1983 service carried nearly 300 students.