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Metro does not let anyone forget that it runs America’s No. 1 transit system. Meanwhile, riders feel the service is No. 2.
In terms of bus fleet size, though, Metro has the third largest, according to an annual fact sheet by trade publication Metro Magazine. As of its September/October 2006 issue (meaning that the data is at least a month older than that), Metro’s fleet is 2,688 buses. New York City has the largest, naturally, at 4,520. Second largest is New Jersey Transit, with 3,008 buses in a service area spanning four states.
Metro Magazine’s list shows Metro has 39 fewer buses than its 2005 ranking, but the No. 3 spot has been steady for many years.
Other Southern California operators within the Top 100 include: Orange County Transportation Authority, No. 19 with 915 buses, 8 fewer than 2005; Los Angeles Department of Transportation (the DASH and Commuter Express people), No. 45 with 402 buses, 11 more than 2005; Foothill Transit, No. 60 with 306 buses, unchanged; our distant neighbor San Diego Transit Corp., No. 65 with 275 buses, 69 fewer (!) than last year; Long Beach Transit, No. 78 with 228 buses, unchanged; Santa Monica’s Big Blue Bus, No. 83 with 203 buses, 4 fewer than last year; and rounding out the bottom of the list are San Bernardino’s Omnitrans, No. 96 with 171 buses, 115 fewer (!!) than last year; and North San Diego County Transit District, No. 99 with 115 buses, unchanged.
To note, the steepest fall on this list - ever - is the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority. Hurricane Katrina had wiped out around 200 buses, more than half of the agency’s fleet. Still, less than half of New Orleans refugees returned to the city after the disaster. New Orleans’ streetcar service is also affected; the historic cars used on the St. Charles Line survived the storm but the newer vehicles were rendered inoperable. The RTA is unique for building the streetcars it operates.
Many Southern California agencies have seen fleet reductions in the past year. This does not always mean a corresponding reduction in service. The numbers above are bus assets, which the agencies count regardless of the buses’ operating condition. Metro has about 200 inoperable buses in mothballs, but these are counted in the fleet totals until the buses are sold or formally scrapped. San Diego’s reduction reflects its shifting of lines to the Metropolitan Transportation System, that county’s equivalent to our Foothill Transit. The 900-series route numbers in San Diego were formerly operated by Transit. And Omnitrans’s fleet information from its web site shows that it is down to 12 diesel-powered RTSs, when just a couple of years ago, it had well over 100. Also, van retirements are counted in the totals and they have a shorter life cycle than the 12 years required for buses.
Discussion
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Please keep discussions civil: exercise Troll Controll.
i wonder what percentage of busses actually work as expected. today the stop ropes weren’t working. the other day the back door was broke. another, there was no bike rack on the front. and on and on.
Metro doesn’t calculate that.
The industry metric for maintenance is mean time between failures (MTBF).
A failure is something that renders a bus inoperable for revenue service.
Metro has really ratty buses, but they are very well-maintained. The problem with the rattiness is that the buses are always out on the road, typically 20 hours a day, and the maintenance crews don’t have enough time to make the buses in respectable order.
One of my favorite ratty buses is Line 96 (LA-Burbank-Sherman Oaks). That thing is nothing more than a school bus painted orange.
Fred, those are school buses. They are either Thomas or Blue Bird buses.
And those are operated by a contractor, not directly by Metro. Those buses are in far worse shape.
What’s the reason for an outside contractor operating that 96 line? Is it historical? Is that line a remnant from some World War II era private bus operator that the MTA just never integrated into its own routes?
Line 96 has been contracted since 1996. Metro had a window in that union contract to outsource service for lines that had a combination of high hourly operation costs and low ridership productivity.
Needless to say, contracting has been a fustercluck, to be very charitable. The contractors have proven to be the worst operators of Metro services, with complaints and equipment failures that are over double the rates for Metro’s worst in-house division.
The unions have pressured Metro to take the lines back in-house, but despite the piss-poor job, Metro cannot afford to have these lines directly operated, especially since contractors have been responsible for decreasing ridership.
and to that point WAD, the one time i ever road 96 it was over an hour late. HURRAY!!! i’ll tell yah, there are few things better than being stuck in the valley on a 100 plus day waiting for a school bus to show up.
My contractor horror story was one witnessed by about 10 members of Socata. It was the first day of Sunday service on then-Metro Line 104 (now Montebello Bus Lines 50).
The driver forgot to turn and went the wrong way. After waiting an hour, we realized that the driver was not deadheading but in fact went on the wrong route!
The next driver told us what happened. Contractors do not train their drivers with line instruction. Our driver said he had to come in on his day off and learn the route before his official assignment began on Monday, the next day. Learning meant getting a copy of the schedule and following the lines on the map.