The Southwest of bus lines?

New York-Boston route's newest player cribs from discount airline models

William Donley (left) and Bruce Hansen, who work for BoltBus, check oil of a coach at South Station. The joint venture between Greyhound and Peter Pan starts service on the Boston-New York route tomorrow. (Dominic Chavez/Globe Staff)

BoltBus, which launches tomorrow, is shaking up low-cost bus service along the Boston-New York route by imitating Southwest Airlines Co.

The airline industry, particularly discount carriers, provided BoltBus with inspiration on everything from the kinds of drivers to hire (fun ones) to the types of on-board toilets to install (flushing ones). Like Southwest in the airline industry, BoltBus is poised to lure passengers away from traditional bus carriers - and perhaps trains and planes - by offering lower prices and a more entertaining atmosphere.

BoltBus, a joint venture between Greyhound Lines Inc. and Peter Pan Bus Lines, promises cheap tickets, 3.5 inches of additional leg room, free on-board wireless Internet access, seatback electrical outlets, orderly boarding, and no overbooking and bumping of passengers. These perks are new to bus travelers who have been paying $15 to $30 one-way to ride without such amenities on older motorcoaches operated jointly by Greyhound and Peter Pan and by Chinatown rivals Fung Wah Bus Transportation Inc. and Lucky Star.

To create BoltBus's image, David Hall, the Greyhound manager tasked with developing the BoltBus concept, turned to the Internet. He spent a month searching the names of airlines and bus companies, reading gripes customers posted about them, and listing the aspects BoltBus should pay attention to.

"We learned as much from message boards and blogs as we did from consumer research," Hall said.

BoltBus steers customers to its website for advance ticket purchases and questions. By not staff ing a call center or posting agents at each stop, it keeps operating costs down and passes the savings on to riders through low, one-way prices - $1 to $20 on the Boston-New York route. Last-minute tickets can also be purchased from the driver.

BoltBus said it got the idea of offering at least one seat per bus for a buck from Skybus Airlines Inc., which priced at least 10 seats per plane for $10 until it went bankrupt and shut down this month. BoltBus doesn't view Skybus's demise as a warning.

"We chose the $1 fare to get the buzz," Hall said. All 51 seats on all 12 daily buses scheduled through Sunday will cost $1 each, plus a 50 cent online booking fee. Tickets "are very briskly selling."

While some of tomorrow's $1-only buses have sold out, it's unclear whether there will be enough ongoing demand from BoltBus's target market of college students, excursionists, and business travelers without expense accounts to keep BoltBus alive. BoltBus needs to sell 27 to 30 seats per bus on this route - including ones priced at $20 - to break even, Hall said.

And it's about to get harder.

Rival MegaBus will start service between Boston and New York next month with free Wi-Fi and at least one $1 fare per bus. (MegaBus will offer free seats during its first week of service, May 30 through June 5.)

With such similar perks and names, customers can get confused. That's why BoltBus's new motorcoaches are painted orange and emblazoned with a lightning bolt.

"We did a color spectrum analysis," said Hall. BoltBus wanted to stand out from the whites, blues, and grays of the competition.

Hall liked orange. But he didn't like the illustration originally painted on the back of the bus of a muscular man's chest, which was meant to conjure up the image of a superhero bolting around town. "It was a little much," said Hall, 45.

He said other ideas BoltBus borrowed from airlines include an on-board departure safety video, a toilet in the back of the bus that "actually flushes blue swirly chemicals" (rather than the outhouse-like "drop toilet" that can stink up other motorcoaches during the four-hour ride), and Southwest's three-stage boarding process that allows groups of passengers to settle into unassigned seats based roughly on the order they purchased their tickets instead of the chaotic bus system of everyone rushing to get on at once.

Southwest stood out most for its fun-loving employees. That's who BoltBus wanted to hire as drivers, Hall said. "We personality-profiled the drivers," Hall said. "Greyhound gives a math test."

BoltBus hired about 50 drivers from a pool of more than 1,000 applicants for the positions that pay at least $17 an hour. When asked what they would tell passengers when it was time for the bus to depart, "the ones who got up and danced a little jig and had fun were the ones we kept," Hall said.

When Hall and his colleagues explained the BoltBus idea to a class at Boston University's School of Hospitality last week, several students became converts.

"It's a cool concept," said Yves Sagnieres, a graduating senior who is headed to New York next month to interview at graduate schools. He was thinking of flying or riding a Chinatown bus, but now plans to hop on BoltBus or MegaBus. "Hopefully I'll get one of the $1 tickets."

Nicole C. Wong can be reached at nwong@globe.com.