A Successful Management Contract in Tucson

When the City of Tucson agreed to assume control of Tucson Rapid Transit's system in 1969 it inherited a struggling transit entity. However, under the city's direction, public transit began to flourish; ridership increased, new buses were purchased, and service rapidly improved.

In 1975, following a citywide contest to rename the system, the name SunTran was selected. Veolia Transportation (under its group Professional Transit Management, or PTM) was awarded a transit management contract in 1999. A transit management contract means that PTM provides executive staff for several key senior positions, who directly manage the business for SunTran.

A major milestone occurred in 2006, when Pima County approved a sales tax referendum that provided funding for the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) to develop an enhanced regional transit system. Sun Tran was then tasked with expanding their 230 square mile service area to 580 square miles and to take the lead on coordinating fare technology, marketing and customer service throughout the region.

The RTA developed several key goals: provide high quality transit services to residents, ensure that operations, policies and procedures are consistent across the region regardless of provider, and coordinate operations, maintenance, administration and technology functions among the many fixed route and paratransit providers in the region.

In order to assist the RTA in achieving their goals and objectives, Veolia Transportation developed solutions to ensure integrated, consistent service across the entire region, including:

• Developing and maintaining strong relationships between SunTran’s senior management team and the RTA and the City of Tucson, in order to coordinate diverse service providers for improved efficiency and rider convenience.
• Utilizing Veolia Transportation’s resources, including its technical experts and network of managed systems, to address and resolve issues related to service consistency and rider convenience.
• Improving operational efficiency.
• Facilitating ongoing communication among all fixed route and paratransit service stakeholders.

Today, SunTran operates 38 fixed routes with a fleet of 335 fixed route and paratransit buses and serves the City of Tucson and portions of Pima County, providing transportation for 19 million passengers annually. The award-winning system remains on the cutting edge of technology as it has since the beginning. Veolia Transportation’s PTM group is proud to be a close partner of SunTran through our management contract.

For further information, see the Contract Options section of this website.