The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) funded the American Public Transit Association (APTA) to develop Standard Purchase Specifications for Transit Buses. The project provided funds for the transit industry, operators and suppliers to develop an industry standard purchase and technical specification for transit buses. A similar document known as "The White Book" was developed in the late 1970's. The White Book had become obsolete and needed to be updated.

Project deliverables from the FTA/APTA effort included standard bus procurement guidelines (Phase I), and a comprehensive technical specification for a "standard" 35/40-foot, high-floor, diesel-powered transit bus (Phase II). Both documents were developed through a consensus process, agreed to by the industry. It is anticipated that the Standard Purchase Specifications will significantly reduce and simplify the time required and complexity of the procurement process, which could result in lower cost vehicles.

With Phases I and II complete, there was a need to conduct a Phase III that developed technical specifications for various "optional" configurations, such as alternative fuels, low-floor, and so on. As more and more bus purchases are identifying one or more of these "optional" configurations, the transit industry had a need to develop industry specifications for these emerging configurations.

The objective of this TCRP project was to develop technical specifications for selected "optional" configurations.

Status: Options selected for the project were low floor, compressed natural gas, the bus operator workstation, and on-board electronics. APTA formed technical working groups for each of the selected options. All techincal specifiacations have been completed and are available through APTA.