How do city buses work

If you pay with cash and take more than one bus or train to get to your destination, you will have to pay full fare each time you board. With ORCA , your transfer credit is automatically calculated based on the fare of your first trip.

Simply tap your card on the second bus. If the next trip you take has a higher fare, the ORCA reader will display the difference and either deduct it from the "E-purse" value on your card or prompt you to pay the amount in cash. King County Metro tickets and transfers are good on Metro buses only. Community Transit does not accept Metro tickets or transfers.

If you use both transit systems, we recommend getting an ORCA card. Masks mandatory on all bus service. Learn more about how to ride our buses safely here. Departing Arriving. No Yes.

Careers at Community Transit. Customer Care M - F, a. Visit the Trip Planner for point A to point B, "find service nearby" or "find nearest stop" functions. Learn how to ride Swift bus rapid transit on our About Swift page.

Consider how you will pay your bus fare— get an ORCA card or have exact change if you plan to pay with cash. You are usually no more than a few blocks from one of our stops Bus Stop List. Every Community Transit bus stop has a sign listing the route numbers that serve it and a poster with the bus schedules for that stop. Plan to arrive at the stop at least five minutes early, as buses may arrive earlier than scheduled. Fare can be paid using cash exact change or a TAP card.

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How to Ride Metro Bus. Analysis should be ongoing to enable the public transit network to develop alongside other changes in the city — too often routes and services remain static. Mass transit options such as metro, light rail transit LRT , trams and bus rapid transit BRT are the most efficient and sustainable ways to move large numbers of people across the city.

However, the COVID pandemic has hit municipal transport budgets hard due to both decreased fare revenues and increased operating costs. Investing now in the future of public transport is essential if cities are to make it an everyday choice in the months and years to come.

Building dedicated bus lanes for BRT and improvements to bus service frequency can usually be implemented relatively quickly and cheaply, compared to other forms of mass transit. Large physical infrastructure projects which typically transport more people without taking up road space — particularly rail and metro — are comparably expensive, politically complex and usually take many years to be planned, financed and implemented.

Therefore, mass transit needs to be integrated into long-term transport and urban development strategies, informed by assessment of the most appropriate mass transit option s locally. By clearly laying out a programme of intended future transit investments, cities can build political coalitions behind projects, coordinate the multiple parties involved in planning and delivering them, and make it easier to secure financing from both government or private sources. Each of these instruments has advantages and disadvantages, and their feasibility will vary depending on the project type and local political and financial context.

For more information about financing public transport, read Six effective ways for cities to invest in climate action and follow the links to access further resources. Promoting a whole-network, intermodal approach to physical transit planning, fares and operations includes:. Additionally, take a whole-city approach to public transport planning though transit-oriented development, whereby jobs, housing, services and amenities are clustered around public transport hubs, bringing a host of benefits.

For more on this, read How to implement transit-oriented development. Improve local air pollution by shifting to zero emission buses. Travel using a diesel bus exposes riders to high levels of air pollution. Read How to shift your bus fleet to zero emission by procuring only electric buses for information on how to do this.

Reducing climate change impacts on mass transit provides a concise overview of the approaches that cities can take. In many cities, bus networks are inefficient, overlapping, irregular, have hard-to-read route maps, unbalanced coverage of the city and differing operating hours.

This is often due to their organic historical expansion. Nevertheless, these systems are widely used and hold huge potential. This spatial bias must be rebalanced for public transport to deliver the reliable, high frequency service necessary to become a viable alternative. The high visibility of road space reallocation also helps to encourage people to use these services.

Reclaiming road space for public transport can be quick, low-cost and incrementally implemented, but must be part of a long-term, holistic process. This includes:. This forces buses to share road space with other traffic, resulting in slow, unreliable and uncomfortable services. In , the city of Fortaleza tackled this imbalance by investing in km of dedicated bus lanes that allow buses to bypass congestion, improving bus terminals and introducing an integrated fare for the entire transit system.

Alongside investment in the bus system, Fortaleza delivered km of bike lanes, integrated bike-share systems with public transport, reduced the speed limit, narrowed roads for cars, raised pedestrian crossings and redesigned intersections in favour of cyclists and pedestrians.

In many Global South cities, a large volume of passenger traffic is often handled by the informal public transport sector paratransit.

The vehicles are usually small — minibuses or converted vans — privately-owned and with little regulation. High-volume routes should be prioritised for large, formalized bus services, while smaller paratransit operators are better suited to low-volume routes.

Read Negotiating the deal to enable the first Rea Vaya bus operating company for insights on how this can be achieved. Cities should also plan how city paratransit and BRT routes interact with other forms of transit, as shown by two innovative city examples:. Transit agencies must work to overcome the common cultural barriers that discourage people from choosing public transport.