Passenger Bus, Rail and Motorcoach Industry News

New real-time information boards will display bus departure times at each of the Government Square Transit Center’s eight bus shelters.

The Ohio Department of Transportation’s new Ohio Transit Preservation Partnership Program will enable the agency to buy five of these vehicles, which have advanced thermal cooling systems that provide a cost savings of $2,000 a year in fuel savings and improved operational performance per bus.

The new 40-foot buses have an advanced thermal cooling system technology which provides benefits, including fuel economy improvement up to 10%; up to 10% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions; reduction in maintenance costs and increased safety through the elimination of hydraulic fluid leaks.

Created to provide greater flexibility by allowing the customer to choose when to start the 30-day pass period by simply inserting the pass into the fare box on the bus.

To provide job-related free rides, the Everybody Rides Metro Foundation uses a federal Job Access-Reverse Commute grant that is matched by the partner agencies to provide bus tokens at no charge to low-income residents to connect them to job counseling, interviews, training and exams and job-related child transportation, in addition to transportation to and from work.

The first six New Flyer hybrids will go into service on Dec. 19 and will replace older diesel buses that are past their useful life. Eight more will be put into service by early 2012. Vehicles will more than double Metro’s hybrid fleet.

The new GFI Odyssey “talking” fareboxes will accept more payment options, including cash, Metro tokens, and transfers, and offer improved ridership reporting capabilities.

The agency re-numbered and re-named five routes to work better with the Google Transit trip planner, effective with the May 29 summer service change.

Terry Garcia Crews was previously president/GM for Star Tran Inc., providing services to the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority in Austin, Texas, responsible for almost 400 fixed-route and paratransit vehicles, a $98 million budget and a workforce of 1,000.

The Everybody Rides Metro Foundation is providing nearly 5,000 Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority bus tokens to help students attend Cincinnati Public Schools in partnership with Project Connect, an organization which helps homeless children regularly attend school.