Federal Officials Shut Down 26 Bus Operators Apex Bus is one of the bus operators in Chinatown shut down after a year-long federal investigation. Federal transportation officials citing serious safety concerns announced on Thursday that they had ordered the shutdown of 26 bus operators, many of them based in Chinatown and offering inexpensive rides along the East Coast to thousands of passengers a day. In addition, 10 bus company owners, managers and employees were forced to cease all passenger transportation operations, including selling tickets, according to transportation officials who called it the biggest crackdown in the history of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. The operators cited had employed drivers who worked long hours, had serious driver qualification violations and, in many cases, did not have valid commercial driver's licenses, officials said. The companies also used vehicles that had not been regularly repaired or inspected. "The egregious acts of these carriers put the unsuspecting public at risk, and they must be removed from our highways immediately," Anne S. Ferro, the administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, said in a news release. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said, "These aggressive enforcement actions against unsafe bus companies send a clear signal: If you put passengers" safety at risk, we will shut you down." Federal officials began investigating the large number of carriers operating along Interstate 95 a year ago following a string of deadly bus accidents, including a crash in the Bronx that killed 15 passengers who were returning from a trip to a casino in Connecticut. Sixteen of the operators are based in New York and 10 are in Philadelphia; together they offer bus service to places from Boston to Florida.