History

RTS is a community institution. We provide service to more than 17 million customers annually, and, consistently report increasing levels of customer satisfaction. RTS also enjoys a national reputation for our innovative Transit Operations Performance Management System, TOPS, and changed public transportation in Rochester forever with the opening of a modern transit center that revolutionized the way we provide service.

But this is hardly news for RTS. We have a tradition of making public transportation in Rochester better.

Even though public transportation had been available in Rochester since 1825 – with the earliest bus lines in operation by 1905 – it frequently fell far short of success.

Rochester City Lines, one of Rochester’s first bus services, opened in 1923 but went bankrupt shortly after.

Following Rochester City Lines, Rochester Transit Corporation re-established a mass transit system in 1938 and increased their ridership to nearly 10 million before financial trouble caught up with them, too.

That’s when the City of Rochester stepped in, and we saw the first signs of the bright future of public transportation to come. Unwilling to deprive its citizens of affordable public transportation, the City of Rochester absorbed Rochester Transit Corporation and renamed it Rochester Transit Service (RTS), which later became Regional Transit Service.

Then, in 1969, following years of consistent and reliable service, sweeping statewide legislation consolidated RTS and the bus services of six other counties into the bus company that many are familiar with today – the Rochester-Genesee Regional Transportation Authority (RGRTA). On August 1, 2014 RGRTA welcomed Ontario County to the family.

RGRTA oversees public transportation in Monroe, Genesee, Livingston, Ontario, Orleans, Seneca, Wayne and Wyoming counties and has a standing reputation for efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Today, RTS is serving customers in all eight counties overseen by RGRTA. And we’re applying the same tradition of better public transportation to give our customers the very best experience – every day.