Wave Transit (Mobile, Alabama)

[Buzz2kb]

There are 2 transit agencies called Wave Transit in southeastern US, and I am about to showcase the one in Mobile, Alabama  here (The other one is in Wilmington, North Carolina; which I do not have a chance to fan on yet). It is also the final Alabama transit agency with fixed route service to be profiled here.  

First start with a couple of buses which are definitely history.  Back in August 2009 on the way to my current job in Mississippi, I managed to picture Novabus RTS 35ft. 9805 in its next to last year of service.

Meanwhile, 2003 Ford E-Series/Goshen combo bus 0306 was also spotted on a low-ridership service.

Onto its currently active buses, the 14 Gillig Low Floor 29ft. buses new in 2004 are still the backbone for the agency at 13 years old.  Illustrated here are buses 0401 and 0414, the first and final buses of the batch.  

They are supplemented by 6 similar buses new in 2010, as depicted by bus 1002.  Despite the 10xx fleet numbers, buses in that series (6 X 29ft. and 4 X 35ft) are late-built EPA-2007 buses, as proved by the shots of 35ft. bus 1007 (It lacks distinctive vents characteristic of its EPA-2010 sister buses I've pictured elsewhere, with pictures of 2011 35ft. hybrid bus 1104 with Montgomery MATS attached for comparison)

Meanwhile, on the cutaway side, the agency has purchased Chevy/Goshen large cutaway combo in 2009, as illustrated by buses 0901(on a neighborhood flexible route) and 0903.  

Then, Chevy/Goshen combo small cutaways are added during 2011, as illustrated by blue buses 1102 and 1104; and green bus 1106.

 A handful of such vans were also wrapped in a trolley livery as replacements for the notoriously unreliable Ebus pure electric trolley replicas, as illustrated by bus 1109.

The agency's newest buses are 7 long-wheelbase Ford F-Series/Glaval cutaways.  They are longer sister buses to those found in Baton Rouge's CATS and Hattiesburg's Hub City Transit (CATS's bus 94 and Hub City Transit's bus 20584 are attached for comparison).  Bus 1601 carries green waves on a blue base, and blue waves on green are carried on buses 1602 and 1604.  They seem to have replaced the 2009 cutaways and maybe the worst of the 0400-series Gilligs.

Here is the link to my Wave Transit Flickr gallery:

Wave Transit

[doglover44]

It's cool too see the baby 29 ft Gilligs

[andrethebusman]

Historic question - any idea what Mobile Transit Authority 156-177 were? From sometime between 1982 and 1989. Should have lasted into early to mid 1990s.