UC Berkeley campus shuttle fleet gets AC Transit buses plus maintenance service through new interagency partnership

Press Releases
05/30/2000

(Oakland, CA) The blue-and-gold striped buses now appearing on UC Berkeley’s campus Perimeter Shuttle are recently- refurbished AC Transit standard city coaches that, in an innovative interagency partnership, are now getting a new, longer lease on productive lives serving the Berkeley campus. UC Berkeley’s Parking & Transportation Department, charged with facilitating campus access for students, faculty, staff and the community, is leasing the brightly-decorated buses from AC Transit. These standard city coaches offer the campus passengers more seats, plus wheelchair lifts that are more reliable than those formerly available. In a three-year contract, the university will rely on the East Bay’s public bus system to perform regular maintenance on these campus shuttle coaches. The university’s buses will be fueled and washed regularly at AC Transit’s Emeryville Division, where some 80 maintenance professionals keep up the 200 coaches in service to the District’s regular riders. In addition, AC Transit is responsible for training the UC Berkeley drivers who will operate the shuttle buses. “This arrangement insures that the University is getting top-rate fleet maintenance service performed by experts,” says AC Transit General Manager Rick Fernandez. “Because these are heavy-duty transit buses, they will have long and useful lives moving many people around and about the UC Berkeley campus.” Nadesan Permaul, Director of Transportation at UC Berkeley, notes, “The AC Transit buses are newer vehicles with increased seating capacity and better equipment to insure access for people with disabilities. We can rely on them to provide a higher level of Perimeter shuttle service at the Berkeley campus C service that will encourage use of public transportation to the University.” In operation on the popular campus Perimeter route to provide car-free trips between the AC Transit/BART transfer hub in downtown Berkeley and many major campus destinations, the leased coaches are now carrying some 2,400 passengers each day.