Capital Metro retired the last burnt orange and white UT Shuttle bus on Tue., Nov. 22. The UT Shuttles are being replaced with new blue Capital Metro-branded buses to serve The University of Texas at Austin campus.
This fleet of burnt orange and white buses has served the UT campus since 1998 and has become a hallmark of Capital Metro’s longstanding partnership with the university. But after 18 years of service, it’s time for an upgrade.
Some of the new vehicles have been in use for UT Shuttle service since the summer. They feature many upgrades over the older vehicles, including: cushioned seats; separate air conditioning systems for the bus operator and riders; HD cameras with front, back and exterior side views for added safety; Braille placards to direct visually impaired riders to priority seating; larger, secured wheelchair riding areas; bright, energy-efficient LED headlights; and additional turn signals and brake lights to make the bus more visible to other motorists.
All Capital Metro service, not just the UT Shuttles, will remain free of charge to UT students, faculty and staff carrying active UT ID cards, which they can swipe at the fare boxes at the front of each bus.
In addition to marking the end of the fleet’s normal life cycle, the move is part of Capital Metro’s rebranding process, which uses the color blue to indicate Local service (of which UT Shuttles are a part). In the past, whenever a Local bus required maintenance or repair, Capital Metro substituted the first available bus to replace it temporarily, occasionally including the orange and white shuttle buses. This sometimes caused confusion among non-UT riders when a UT Shuttle bus pulled up to their stop.
Now that all Local service will use vehicles of the same color, buses will be interchangeable with a simple switch of the digital destination sign. UT Shuttle routes will be differentiated by the
display of the interlocking UT logo on the illuminated destination sign at the front of the vehicle (next to the route number).
Last year, the UT Shuttle provided over 3.7 million rides.
