Virginia Overland Transportation - Richmond Operations 1993-2004

Richmond Operations 1993-2004

Following completion of the projects working with JLA, VOTC consolidated its two locations in Richmond for dealership and transportation services into a single site in 1993. Following closure and liquidation of Wayne Corporation in 1992, and sale of Champion's bus manufacturing operations to a competing company several years later, VOTC never regained its former volume of new school bus sales. Its franchise dealership with Mid Bus ended in 1997. In 1998, Mid Bus operations were acquired by a larger competitor. Mid Bus operations in Bluffton, Ohio were closed completely by its new owners a few years later.

Overland Bus Sales operating as VOTC continued to operate passenger services based in Richmond until 2004. A contractual relationship with Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) for a wide range of passenger transportation services, first begun in 1989, continued after winning several competitive contracts and renewals, notably in 1993, 1995, and 2001. Also later in 2001, the company won a new competitive contract to operate CARE, an award-winning welfare-to-work van program serving the region provided by Greater Richmond Transit Company (GRTC), the local public transit agency in Richmond, Virginia jointly owned by the City of Richmond and Chesterfield County. Each contract ended in June 2004, when GRTC assumed self-operation of both the CARE program and assumed provision of the VCU Campus Transit system using Federal Transit Administration (FTA) funded equipment. Virginia Overland Transportation's parent corporation and its Richmond operating subsidiary were dissolved in 2005, although several of the former subsidiary had been consolidated in JLA and, therefore, later became part of Serco Group's North American operations. As of 2010, Serco listed over 600 contract operations world-wide, including some of the former JLA and VOTC operations and employees.