Valley Metro (Phoenix) - About Valley Metro

About Valley Metro

Valley Metro is a membership organization. Most services are separately funded and operated by individual cities and suburbs in the greater Phoenix region. These cities have agreed to participate in Valley Metro as a unifying brand name to streamline service and reduce confusion among riders. Each city appoints a representative to the RPTA board of directors, and a chairman, vice chairman, and treasurer are voted on amongst the board members for a one-year term.

The three largest operators of bus service are the city of Phoenix, the Regional Public Transportation Authority (operating multi-city routes and services in Mesa and Chandler), and the city of Tempe. Circulator service in Glendale is operated by the city of Glendale directly, and route 76 and the Scottsdale Trolley circulators are contracted by the city of Scottsdale.

The RPTA operates a customer service, marketing and long-range transit planning operation from headquarters in downtown Phoenix which is shared among all Valley Metro member cities. A few routes which operate within several member cities have their funding and operations shared between those cities. Some RPTA funding is used to augment service provided by the member cities (this is expected to increase over the next several years due to the 2004 voter approval of an extension to the original 1985 sales tax for transit funding). The city of Phoenix alone operates 73 percent of all Valley Metro routes (several of which also serve suburban cities).