CDOT Celebrates One-Year Anniversary of Bustang®
DENVER—Bustang® celebrates its first anniversary on Wednesday, July 13, 2016. The Colorado Department of Transportation's inter-regional express bus service exceeded ridership, revenue and fare box recovery projections during its first year of service.
For more information and a closer look at this new era of transportation, please visit www.ridebustang.com.
Media Opportunity
To commemorate the one-year anniversary, personnel from CDOT and Bustang operator Ace Express Coaches will be on hand at Union Station's Bus Terminal, Gate B3, to greet riders from all three routes from 6:30 - 10 a.m.
Experiential ride-along:
Complimentary rides aboard Bustang are available for each route. Please contact Christine Carter at 303-832-2700, or at [email protected] for more information.
"Historically, it takes about a year to build ridership within a new transportation system," said CDOT Director of Transit and Rail Mark Imhoff. "Even knowing this, we set the bar high, establishing aggressive milestones to hit within our first year of service. Exceeding these initial projections speaks not only to public demand but to the quality experience Bustang offers its passengers."
Ridership outpaced Bustang's forecast numbers by close to 15,000 passengers. Overall system revenue eclipsed projected sums by nearly 36 percent, with a fare box recovery ratio tallying 8 percent over initial estimates.
"The numbers say it all," said CDOT Bus Operations Manager Michael Timlin. "We welcomed our 100,000th passenger on June 24 and couldn't be happier. As we hit certain targets, we'll continue to expand schedules and service options, just as we did in 2015."
Bustang offers three major service routes: between Fort Collins and Denver; Colorado Springs and Denver; and Glenwood Springs and Denver.
Within the first six months of service, Bustang's western and northern routes saw an increasing need for weekend service from their respective areas. CDOT responded by adding a round-trip weekend service between Denver and Glenwood Springs, and by providing its RamsRoute service from Colorado State University to Denver on Friday afternoon, with a return trip to campus Sunday evening during the academic year.
The launch of Bustang helps further CDOT's multi-modal mission, and fulfills a key responsibility to alleviate congestion and offer more travel choices for longer-distance commuters on the state's major corridors.
