Coach USA traces its history back to 1922 as Lackawanna Bus and later Consolidated Bus Lines, a small outfit operating local service in Bergen County, New Jersey, and later along the Jersey Shore and throughout the New York metropolitan area founded by Jim and Denis Gallagher.

[2][3] Listing on the NASDAQ in 1996 under ticker TOUR, and later switching to the New York Stock Exchange under stock ticker CUI, Coach USA, under the leadership of Richard Kristinik, would expand quickly, acquiring Progressive Transportation Services Inc. a contractor of municipal transit systems in Upstate New York.

During this time, the Gallagher family would start another company, Student Transportation of America, based in the area of its Coast Cities operation.

Eight of the sold companies would be reacquired when Coach America declared bankruptcy in 2012, along with Lakefront/Hopkins in Ohio, with the intent of expanding (and in the case of California, reintroducing) the Megabus brand.

In December 2018 Stagecoach announced it had agreed to sell all of its North American operations to Variant Equity Advisors subsidiary Project Kenwood Acquisition with the deal concluded in April 2019.

Coach USA closed Lakefront Lines in Ohio and Central Cab in Pennsylvania in 2020, due to the pandemic.