Special Report: A Look at U.S. Bus Fleets

Transit agencies across North America continue to grapple with the disruption brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic but remain nimble in their approaches to community engagement, ridership retention and overall service recovery and growth initiatives.

Several systems, including Edmonton Transit Service, Chicago Transit Authority, Metropolitan Transportation Authority, TransLink and Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority are reporting steady gains in ridership in late 2022 and into 2023. These systems are also making note their bus services have been driving these increases.

A policy brief released in March from the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) offers a national view of ridership trends. Overall, transit ridership has reached more than 70 percent of pre-pandemic levels, which is a significant gain when compared against the lowest levels that represented 20 percent of pre-pandemic ridership.

APTA’s brief notes smaller cities have been more successful in seeing ridership levels return. The brief credits this to a possible lack of teleworking options for riders in smaller cities and pointes to office return data that suggests “proportionally more workers in smaller cities are working in offices than in larger cities.”

The brief also says bus modes were able to retain higher levels of ridership versus rail modes because bus modes serve more essential workers in general. Breaking modes out further, demand response has achieved 71 percent of pre-pandemic ridership levels followed by bus and trolleybus ridership at 70 percent.

The brief concludes agencies focused on serving historically marginalized communities could see ridership growth. This includes support for hourly, late night and early morning workers by reinvesting in equitable transit.

While ridership has been a key metric for the industry, there are efforts among agencies to move away from ridership as the priority performance indicator. At the South West Transit Association 2023 Annual Conference held in Aurora, Colo., Regional Transportation District General Manager and CEO Debra A. Johnson and VIA Metropolitan Transit President and CEO Jeffrey Arndt outlined their agencies’ efforts to focus on value versus volume.

VIA Metropolitan has developed a performance dashboard that is accessible to the public through the agency’s website. It measures six metrics, including ridership, on-time performance, collision rates per 100,000 miles driven, complaints per every 10,00 passengers, miles before mechanical failure and cost per boarding. The tracking of these metrics are means to communicate operating performance while increasing accountability and transparency.

At RTD, Johnson explained value is the focus of the agency’s current strategic plan. The plan includes four strategic priorities – community value, customer excellence, employee ownership and financial success – and clear metrics that will result in a successful outcome. The first three priorities – community value, customer excellence and employee ownership – involve establishing a baseline and then increasing it by five percent. The fourth priority, financial success, is broken into two success outcomes that include RTD spending less money than it receives and establishing that the community believes it sees value in RTD’s spending.

Options for Powering Vehicles

In Mass Transit’s recent “2023 Mobility Outlook” survey, 44 percent of respondents answered that their agency planned to award a battery electric bus contract in 2023 and 11 percent reported a hydrogen fuel cell bus contract would be awarded this year, while 31 percent reported a contract for diesel vehicles would be awarded.

Smaller agencies are beginning their zero-emission journey with electric vehicles delivered or put into service for the first time at Oakville Transit in Ontario and Santa Maria Regional Transit. The city of Annapolis, Md., ordered its first two electric transit buses in early February, and Foothill Transit launched Los Angeles County’s first three hydrogen fuel cell buses into revenue in early December.

CALSTART, which produces an annual report tracking the adoption of zero-emission vehicles, calls the pace set during the past year by North American transit agencies steady, with small market gains a significant development.

CALSTART’s “2023 Zeroing in on ZEBs” report determined the total count of full-size battery-electric and fuel-cell electric transit buses in the U.S. has grown to 5,480—a 66 percent increase since 2021. The total count of small ZEBs grew by 261 from 2021 – an overall increase of 42 percent year-over-year, though the growth rate is 31 percent less than the rate recorded in 2021.

Canada has also experienced year-to-year growth in full-size and small ZEB adoptions. As of September 2022, the number of ZEBs across the country has grown to 859. The adoption of ZEBs grew by 34 percent from 2021, showing progress toward achieving net-zero emissions goals by 2050.

CALSTART also recognized the policy and funding sources in both countries have aided the adoption of ZEBs. In the U.S. more than 1,100 zero-emission vehicles were slated to be purchased using funds awarded through the Federal Transit Administration’s Low and No Emission Grants and Bus and Bus Facilities Grants programs. In Canada, the Zero Emission Transit Fund was established in 2021, which will allocate C$2.75 billion (US$2.04 billion) to ZEB projects over five years with the federal government aiming to deploy 5,000 electric transit vehicles.

Fleet Age Varies

Data included in the NTD shows the percent of active vehicles that meet or exceed their useful life has been steady, with articulated buses seeing a significant improvement. As with the zero-emission transition of fleets, available federal funding has assisted in keeping fleets within useful life spans. However, current supply chain issues, particularly within the small bus market, are threatening the progress made. Mass Transit’s “2023 Mobility Outlook” survey found 45 percent of respondents said their agency’s bus fleet required the most immediate investment to achieve State of Good Repair goals while 71 percent of agency respondents reported having experienced a vehicle order cancellation or delay in delivery during the past year.

According to the Community Transportation Association of America (CTAA), small bus transportation providers have faced price increases and growing wait times in delivery of vehicles. As of fall 2022, the estimated backlog was 20,000 vehicles – a number that is expected to increase in 2023.

CTAA, with the American Public Transportation Association and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, have requested assistance from the federal government to make more small bus chassis available to the market and streamline procurement regulations. The associations expressed concern agencies would not be able to leverage the significant funding available at the federal level if steps are not taken to increase chassis availability.