It's been a tough 10 years, but the man behind Maritime Bus has no regrets

Mike Cassidy says he distinctly remembers the moment in the summer of 2012 when he took the plunge and decided to take over Acadian Lines, the regional daily bus system in the Maritime provinces.

Cassidy, who ran a charter bus service on P.E.I. was in the middle of a media interview, reacting to the news that Acadian was going out of business, its Quebec owner claiming it was losing millions of dollars a year.

"Don't ask me what [I said], why I said it, how I said it, except I got the words out — 'We're going to do it'," Cassidy said in a phone interview.

"We did not understand the line-running business, but we believed in busing, we believed in our three provinces and we were going to have it."

On Dec. 1, Maritime Bus will mark 10 years in business.

It hasn't been easy, especially when COVID-19 hit in the spring of 2020, but Cassidy said he's still optimistic about the service's future.

Cassidy wasn't exactly a newcomer to the bus business. His company had been doing a charter service for decades, and in 2005 took on the job of operating the municipal bus service in Charlottetown, which also served other outlying communities.

But, a daily service to 40 communities in three provinces was a different kettle of fish, and Cassidy only had a few months to figure it all out.

"We never did a business plan, we never pushed any financial statement numbers, we never understood the losses of the previous companies," Cassidy said.

"We just said … busing is needed in the region and we are the ones to do it, and that's how Maritime Bus started."

Acadian Lines stopped service at midnight on Nov. 30, 2012. At 6 a.m. the next day, Maritime Bus took over.

Cassidy said everyone was nervous about what that first day would be like.

"We didn't know if anybody was ever going to show up at six o'clock, 6:15 in the morning. But my goodness they did."

The next few months were a steep learning curve, especially given the time of year.