The Use of Small Buses in Transit Service

This synthesis will be on interest to transit agency professionals and the consultants who work with them in dealing with small buses in transit service. The focus of this document is on the use of small buses (30 feet or less in length) as replacements for large buses in fixed-route, scheduled service, or those used in innovative, more flexible operations such as route deviation or demand-response service. Excluded from the study were paratransit services (those available only for the elderly or those with disabilities), rural services, and services using trolley replicas. This document integrates information from several tasks including a summary of research findings; a review of documents and websites; surveys of small bus manufacturers; survey responses from 94 public transit agencies in North America; both those using and not using small buses, and four case studies.