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How Many Electric Buses Does Your City Have? Find Out Here

Electric buses, though costly, are beginning to make up more and more of the U.S. transit fleet. Here's a tool where you can look up how many electric buses a transit agency has, as well as how much it's driving them.

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Electric buses might cost more up front than fossil fuel-powered buses, but they are generally cheaper to operate — and they're becoming more popular, in the U.S. and worldwide.

Take Antelope Valley Transit Authority in Lancaster, Calif., for example. That agency just became the first in the nation to move to a 100 percent electric fleet, and in doing so it has seen cost savings and cleaner air.

Still, having so many electric buses is not common for a transit agency. According to the 2020 National Transit Database, the most recent report from the federal government, there are 1,268 electric buses actively operating at transit agencies across the U.S. — out of 63,530 total buses.

Here's a tool where you can look up the number of electric buses in your city, as well as how much they're being driven.

(Scroll down for methodology notes.)

METHODOLOGY


This data comes from the 2020 National Transit Database managed by the Federal Transit Administration. 2020 is the most recent year of data available; check back for updates as more data is released.

This table only includes data from full reporters, which make up the majority of transit trips nationwide.

The number of buses was pulled from "Revenue Vehicle Inventory" and the miles driven by fuel type came from "Fuel and Energy." Only rows coded "CB" (commuter bus), "MB" (municipal bus), "RB" (bus rapid transit) and "TB" (trolley bus) were included for the purposes of this table. Certain duplicate rows were removed from the "Revenue Vehicle Inventory" data when the transit agency, number of vehicles, year of manufacture and number of miles driven all matched — this mostly affected the city of Charlotte, N.C., and the Utah Transit Authority.

CORRECTIONS AND UPDATES


  • 4/12/22: Trolley buses were added to the dataset.
  • 12/15/22: Corrected total miles driven for the Maryland Transit Administration
Do you have a correction or update to report? If so, send an email to bmiller@erepublic.com.
Ben Miller is the associate editor of data and business for Government Technology. His reporting experience includes breaking news, business, community features and technical subjects. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in journalism from the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno, and lives in Sacramento, Calif.