Gainesville Regional Transit System is the local area transit corporation that serves the Gainesville,

Alachua County, Florida Alachua County ( ) is a county in the north central portion of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 278,468. The county seat is Gainesville, the home of the University of Florida since 1906, when the campus ope ...

area, the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

and

Santa Fe College Santa Fe College is a public college based in Gainesville, Florida, with satellite campuses in Alachua and Bradford counties. It is part of the Florida College System. It was established in 1965 as Santa Fe Junior College by the Florida Legisl ...

campuses. It presently serves 40 city routes (19 on Saturdays, 16 on Sundays), 10 campus routes, and five "Later Gator" routes.

Paratransit Paratransit is the term used in North America, also known by other names such as community transport ( UK) for transportation services that supplement fixed-route mass transit by providing individualized rides without fixed routes or timetables. ...

(ADA) service is also provided to anyone with a Gainesville address.

City routes

Campus Service

10 RTS routes operate on the University of Florida (UF) campus. These include "

park and ride A park and ride, also known as incentive parking or a commuter lot, is a parking lot with public transport connections that allows commuting, commuters and other people heading to city centres to leave their vehicles and transfer to a bus, Rail t ...

" and circulator routes. UF and Santa Fe College (SF) students have prepaid unlimited access to RTS services through a transportation fee attached to each credit hour for undergraduates. UF faculty, staff, spouses and retirees have unlimited prepaid access through the RTS Employee Bus Pass Program, as do SF faculty, staff and students.

Later Gator

Later Gator is a late night service that provides safe, late night service for students between campus, downtown, the Oaks Mall and southwest Gainesville through five routes. This service has been cancelled with no clear future plans to return service to the routes.

Gator Aider

Gator Aider is a shuttle service provided to transport fans to and from

Gators home

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

games. Service is available at five park-n-ride locations around the Greater Gainesville area including the Town of Tioga,

the Oaks Mall The Oaks Mall is an enclosed shopping center in Gainesville, Florida. Its anchors include Belk, two Dillard's stores, J. C. Penney, and the University of Florida Health. The mall interior is one floor, but Belk and both Dillard's stores have ...

, Haile Plantation, the UF Hilton Conference Center and the City of Gainesville Downtown Parking Garage.

Bus Tracking

In 2008, RTS equipped their fleet with a

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a Radionavigation-satellite service, satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of t ...

capability called TransLoc. This enables riders to see if their bus is running on time. TransLoc Rider, a mobile phone app that incorporates the TransLoc GPS capability, is also available for riders. Transloc Example

Fleet

Since 1974, Gainesville has had a diverse fleet of buses bought from Transit Authorities in state and manufacturers such as GMC,

Orion Bus Industries Orion Bus Industries, also known as Bus Industries of America in the United States, was a private bus manufacturer based in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. The company had its main manufacturing plant in Mississauga and sent bus body shells to t ...

Blue Bird The bluebirds are a North American group of medium-sized, mostly insectivorous or omnivorous birds in the order of Passerines in the genus ''Sialia'' of the thrush family (Turdidae). Bluebirds are one of the few thrush genera in the Americas. B ...

Nova Bus Nova Bus (stylized as NOVABUS) is a Canadian bus manufacturer headquartered in Saint-Eustache, Quebec, Canada. Nova is owned by the Volvo Group. The company has roots in the General Motors Diesel Division, which opened in 1979. Nova Bus was est ...

Flexible Flexible may refer to: Science and technology * Power cord, a flexible electrical cable. ** Flexible cable, an Electrical cable as used on electrical appliances * Flexible electronics * Flexible response * Flexible-fuel vehicle * Flexible rake re ...

Gillig Corporation Gillig (formerly Gillig Brothers) is an American designer and Bus manufacturing, manufacturer of buses. The company headquarters, along with its manufacturing operations, is located in Livermore, California (in the East Bay (San Francisco Bay ...

. All RTS buses are equipped with bicycle racks and wheelchair lifts. While many were purchased new, others were acquired second-hand from other operators in the state, including 30 that were acquired from

Lynx A lynx is a type of wild cat. Lynx may also refer to: Astronomy * Lynx (constellation) * Lynx (Chinese astronomy) * Lynx X-ray Observatory, a NASA-funded mission concept for a next-generation X-ray space observatory Places Canada * Lynx, Ontar ...

and 11 from Palm Tran. RTS acquired five new Gillig hybrid electric buses (two in early 2012 and three more in 2013).

Active Fleet

Gillig Phantom The Gillig Phantom is a series of buses that was produced by an American manufacturer Gillig Corporation in Hayward, California. The successor to the long-running Gillig Transit Coach model line, the Phantom marked the transition of Gillig from ...

Gillig Low Floor The Gillig Low Floor (originally named Gillig H2000LF and also nicknamed Gillig Advantage) is a transit bus manufactured by the Gillig Corporation. The second low-floor bus introduced in the United States (after the New Flyer LF), the Low Floor ...

Retired Fleet

* Nova Bus RTS

References

External links

Gainesville RTS website
{{University of Florida 1974 establishments in Florida Bus transportation in Florida Transit agencies in Florida Transportation in Alachua County, Florida Transportation in Gainesville, Florida University of Florida