Transit Integration

SCTA has a role in coordinating and planning alongside local transit agencies and elevated its work on transit integration with the development of the Transit Integration and Efficiency Study (TIES) in 2019.

The Future of Transit Ad Hoc, established in fall 2020, continued to lead implementation of TIES for the three local bus operators—Santa Rosa CityBus, Sonoma County Transit, and Petaluma Transit—and became a venue to coordinate locally on regional work led by MTC’s Blue Ribbon Transit Recovery Task Force. The Ad Hoc established the following goals for TIES implementation.

• Increase transit ridership as a mechanism to reduce GHG emissions, improve access to low-cost transportation, and reduce congestions.
• Simplify and enhance the transit customer experience, while maximizing resources available to transit and improving operation efficiency and service quality (reliability frequency, and span of service).
• Meet these outcomes through a “unified brand” for local bus transit in Sonoma County.

In 2021, the Blue Ribbon Transit Recovery Task Force granted SCTA funding to build off the continued collaboration and implement transit integration activities in Sonoma County that align with and help advance elements of the Transit Transformation Action Plan.

Transit Integration and Efficiency Study (2019)

SCTA collaborated with a consulting team, MTC, and the three local bus operators—Santa Rosa CityBus, Sonoma County Transit, and Petaluma Transit—to develop the study. TIES identifies opportunities to coordinate or integrate many aspects of providing transit service among the three local bus transit providers in Sonoma County. TIES was built on long-standing coordination among the operators and identified strategies that would most effectively improve passenger experience, reduce operating and capital costs, and better integrate the existing operating systems. Read the Final Study and Appendices

Sonoma County Integrated Transit Service Planning Study (2024)

Building off recommendations in the 2019 Transit Integration and Efficiency Study, SCTA led a Service Planning Study in collaboration with a consulting team, the three local bus operators—Santa Rosa CityBus, Sonoma County Transit, and Petaluma Transit, as well as Golden Gate Transit and SMART. The overarching goal of the study is to increase the efficiency of delivering high-quality transit service and maximize the use of limited resources through integrated multi-agency service planning. The Service Planning Study focuses on corridors where transit routes overlap in Sonoma County, further schedule and transfer coordination, as well as regional connections. Read the Final Study

Website Unification Project

The first phase of a Website Unification Project that will ultimately result in development of a single website landing page for Sonoma County bus transit information launched in 2023. This first phase included design review and development of consistent design mockups for all three local bus operator websites, and design and development of a new website for Santa Rosa CityBus that is consistent with an agreed upon designs for all three bus transit agencies.

The second phase of this project will be to apply the unified design to the Petaluma Transit and Sonoma County Transit websites, and develop a single landing page for all three agency websites.