CUMTD.com provides bus service info for Champaign, Urbana, Savoy, and UI.
About CUMTD.com
The Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District, or MTD, provides public transportation to Champaign, Urbana, Savoy, and the University of Illinois campus. Bus service operates 7 days a week and almost 24 hours a day.
The site features color maps and schedules of all routes, along with reroute information. Whether you're familiar with the service or new to town, the site offers all levels of detail. The Trip Planner feature lets riders enter a starting and end point and specify the date and time of arrival or departure. Users can enter addresses, intersections, or points of interest. Bus Stop Lookup can process the same information and show users all the routes that service the stop. Users can view how many minutes until each route will arrive at the stop in real-time information and view the location on an embedded map.
Beyond detailed bus route information, the site is educational. Riders can learn how to ride, catch up on MTD jargon and slang, discover MTD's "go green" initiatives, read the history of the District, and much more. Champaign-Urbana has an award winning municipal bus system, the Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District [www.cumtd.com]. The adult fare is $1.00. In addition to providing service to Champaign and Urbana, the bus also serves the village of Savoy. Students, faculty, and staff of the University of Illinois need only show their university ID card to ride. Routes that serve campus with 10 to 15 minute frequency are the 1 Yellow, 5 Green, 10 Gold, 12 Teal, 13 Silver, and 22 Illini. Most community routes will drive through campus, but with limited frequency. iStops are designated stops for boarding and alighting that do not require passengers to pay a fare or show their ID card. These iStops are positioned along high density corridors found mostly in Campustown. Designated Stops require riders to show ID or pay a fare, but also designate where passengers may board and alight [1].
The Yellow, Green, Teal, Silver, and Illini run past 3 am during the academic year. SafeRides is a late-night pick-up service provided to and funded by University of Illinois students. Vans are dispatched through the night to safely transport small numbers of students (1-3) within the designated community zone until 6:30 am [2]. Routes that serve the community are the 2 Red, 3 Lavender, 4 Blue, 6 Orange, 7 Grey, 8 Bronze, 9A and 9B Brown, 14 Navy, and 27 Air Bus. On evenings and weekends, the decennial series of the routes operate (ie 20, 30, 50, 60, 70, 100, 120, 130, 220, 270). Community routes operate on 15 to 30 minute frequency, but vary by time of day. The 27 Air Bus runs every hour due to the length of its trip [3].
MTD's Hoppers run along the heaviest traveled portion of a route and operate at either 10 or 15-minute frequencies. This gives passengers the freedom to travel without a schedule. Hoppers connect downtown Champaign, downtown Urbana, and the University of Illinois. There are four Hopper routes: GOLDhopper, GREENhopper, ORANGEhopper, and YELLOWhopper. The GREENhopper is the only one of the four that only operates when the University is in session [4].
The 280 tranSPORT operates before, during, and after all home men's football games. This special route transports fans from parking garages and the Campbell Alumni Center to Memorial Stadium [5].
Direct Services bring community members into areas of frequent service who live or work in areas not served by fixed routes. The 331 Northeast Direct operates Monday through Friday in the morning and afternoon, north of I-74 in Urbana [6]. In the weekday evenings and all-day Saturday and Sunday, the 331 Northeast Direct extends its boundaries further south to University Avenue [7]. The 334 West Direct provides service Monday through Friday in the morning and afternoon, west of I-57 and south of Springfield Ave [8]. The 333 Southwest Direct operates in varying boundaries in the weekday evenings [9], Saturday daytime [10], Saturday Evening [11], and Sunday [12].
MTD's bus fleet is composed primarily of 40 foot transit buses. The fleet is supplemented by 16, 60 foot articulated buses that operate primarily on campus. MTD also operates 30 foot buses. All buses are low-floor and equipped with ramps, wheelchair tiedowns, and lift-up seats in the handicapped-priority seating area - ideal for wheelchairs, walkers, canes, and service animals. The front of every bus is also equipped with a bicycle rack that can hold two bikes. (see instructions for use)[13] Additionally folding bikes may be carried on buses as per the District's policy. All buses had GPS locators installed several years ago and have "Stop Annunciators" to meet ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) requirements for people with visual impairment. Transit vans are used for SafeRides, Direct Services, and for ADA Paratransit [14].
CUMTD has used GPS for several years to track buses and has developed a suite of STOPwatch services to provide real time information to passengers. STOPwatch.WEB provides arrival times for every bus stop in the District on cumtd.com. STOPwatch.WIDGET is a downloadable, Yahoo application that tracks buses on your desktop. One of the most passenger-friendly utilization is STOPwatch@theStop, which provides real time "Next Bus Arrives..." signage at certain high-traffic bus stops throughout Champaign, Urbana, and the UI campus. Other STOPwatch services include STOPwatch.MOBI for smartphones and STOPwatch.SMS for texting. Learn how to use these services on MTD's STOPwatch page [15].
Free printed maps and schedules come in booklet form (about 160 pages) and include color maps, schedules, and general information. They are easily found on MTD buses, at Illinois Terminal, most UI buildings, dorms and apartments, and at many businesses throughout the cities [16].
