The following is a snapshot profile of the New York City Transit Department of Buses.
Service area.: Manhattan,Queens,Brooklyn,the Bronx,Staten Island
Daily Ridership: 2.4 million
Number of Buses: 4524, which are housed,based, and maintained at 18 depots throughout the city,of which the Jackie Gleason
Depot is the best known. These buses operate over 207 local and 36 express routes in the five boroughts and service 12,581
bus stops. The average bus travels 3691 miles between repairs and general overhauls and heavy maintenance are done at the
Bronx's Zerega Avenue and Brooklyn's East New York Central Maintenance Facilities. In addition, the Ninth Avenue shop
in Manhattan and East New York Shop in Brooklyn rebuild individual bus components while the Zerega and Crosstown shops
paint buses that have been overhauled or had heavy maintenance done on them. Maintenance involves over 7000 individual parts.
The latest addition to the bus fleet is the 45 foot over the road coach purchased for the NYCT's express routes as well
as for the MTA Bus Company. This type of bus is assigned to express routes between Manhattan and Staten Island, Bronx, and
Queens. It is built by Motor Coach Industries and is based on the j4500 highway cruiser type bus. The bus features underfloor
baggage compartments, wheelchair lift, and two piece plug type door to facilitate easier curbside loading and unloading. The
bus is one of several MCI models currently in use on New York City Transit in express service. Buses used in local service
include remanufactured GMC RTS's RTS's built by TMC and Nova, Orions, and New Flyer. The current bus operation is the product
of combining numerous companies into several large systems and merging them together, of which the Fifth Avenue Coach Company
was one of the largest.