Sun Tran

Sun Tran is the public transit system serving the city of Tucson, Arizona. Sun Tran traces its history to 1905, when the Tucson Rapid Transit Company assumed operations of the horse-drawn streetcar system in town, converting it to electric streetcars. By the 1930's, the streetcar lines were converted to buses. The City of Tucson acquired Tucson Rapid Transit in 1969. A separate company, Old Pueblo Transit, which served primarily Tucson's South Side, was acquired by the City of Tucson in 1978 and its operations folded into Sun Tran. [ [http://www.suntran.com/about_history.php History of Sun Tran from their website] ]

Awards

Sun Tran won the "America's Best Transit System" award for 1988 and 2005 from the American Public Transportation Association in the category of 4 to 30 million annual passenger trips.

Fleet

Current fleet

Retired Fleet

Note that this is by no means a complete listing of retired vehicles that have operated for Sun Tran and/or its predecessors.

Alternative propulsion

For at least the next five years, Sun Tran will use more biodiesel buses. Biodiesel is a cleaner than regular diesel and helps with the mitigation of peak oil, one of the main causes of the economic crisis of 2008. Sun Tran plans to buy an additional 119 biodiesel buses over its five-year contract with bus manufacturer Gillig Corp. buses are also capable of running on regular diesel, but Sun Tran does not use petrodiesel in any of its buses. Sun Tran uses B20 and B5 biodiesel blends in its 114 biodiesel buses. It is believed that the increased use of biodiesel avoided a potential fare increase and fuel surcharge in July 2008. [ [http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/printDS/245600 Biodiesel powers Sun Tran | www.azstarnet.com ® ] ]

References

External links

* [http://www.suntran.com/ Sun Tran] (official site)