…traveled 100,996,833 miles in fiscal year 15 (FY15)! MTS relies heavily on its bus fleet day-in and day-out. With more than 56 million passenger trips in the log for FY15, maintaining a top-notch fleet is important to MTS’ daily operations and service.
Over the past several months, MTS has been rolling out new Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) vehicles, which are more cost effective and run cleaner, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving our air quality.
On the road.
The bus division is comprised of MTS operations at its Imperial Avenue (IAD) and Kearny Mesa (KMD) divisions, and contract service operations in the South Bay and East County. In total, the MTS bus fleet tops out at 790 vehicles, with 617 dedicated to fixed-route operations and 173 paratransit (MTS Access buses).
What’s new.
From July to October 2015, MTS received 13 new 60-foot articulated New Flyers which replaced the last of the IAD and KMD-operated diesel buses. These buses are similar to the 1100 and 1200 series vehicles, which currently operate on Rapid routes 215, 235, 237 and SuperLoop. A perk of the new vehicles is the use of automatic voice annunciation, soon-to-be installed in the entire MTS fleet, so drivers no longer have to make announcements manually! Also new to the fleet will be 50 40-foot, low-floor Gillig vehicles, which will phase out the 2001 year model of the New Flyer CNG buses. We anticipate all 50 Gilligs will be in operation by the end of 2015.
Looking ahead.
MTS is continuing to upgrade the bus fleet and will phase out older diesel vehicles as new CNG models become available. When the East County Bus Maintenance Facility is up and running (projected completion date Summer 2016), a total of 51 CNG Gillig vehicles will go to the East County fleet. By end of summer 2016 all fixed-route bus vehicles in the system, except for BlueBird commuter buses operating on Routes 280 and 290 will be CNG.
Want to know more about the East County Bus Maintenance Facility project? Visit SANDAG's project page.
