As part of its report, Customization, Competition, and Costs: Findings and Recommendations for the U.S. Transit Bus Industry, the research team examined cost drivers, customization, and market competition in the U.S. transit bus industry. A dataset was created with more than 1,500 bus procurements from 2015 through 2025, across 42 states. The following charts summarize the data, and the downloadable spreadsheet contains all the detailed information.
Eno Center for Transportation & CALSTART
What does a transit bus cost?
Median procurement prices across 1,627 contracts from U.S. transit agencies, 2015–2025. All prices in constant 2023 dollars.
Diesel
$591K
median price
CNG
$657K
median price
Diesel Hybrid
$890K
median price
Battery Electric
$1,074K
median price
Hydrogen
$1,367K
median price
Records
1,627
42 states + Canada
By fuel type
Median Price by Fuel Type (all years, all regions)
Median prices across all procurements, 2015–2025. Hydrogen is the most expensive fuel type but has the fewest procurements (21 contracts).
Based on median contract prices. Diesel n=689, CNG n=398, Hybrid n=195, BEV n=240, Hydrogen n=21.
Price trends over time
Median Price by Year and Fuel Type
Median unit price by year. All bus types have seen price increases since 2021 due to supply chain pressures and inflation — even after CPI adjustment.
Diesel
CNG
Diesel Hybrid
Battery Electric
By region
Median Price by Region and Fuel Type
Median prices vary within roughly $70K across regions for diesel and CNG. Battery electric shows slightly more regional variation.
Diesel
CNG
Battery Electric
By bus length
Median Price by Bus Length and Fuel Type
A 60-ft articulated bus costs roughly 60–80% more than a standard 40-ft bus of the same fuel type. The gap is largest for battery electric articulated buses.
Diesel
CNG
Battery Electric
Methodology: All values shown are medians across individual procurement contracts. Prices are normalized to constant 2023 dollars using BLS CPI-U. Categories with fewer than 5 procurement records are excluded. Regional groupings follow U.S. Census Bureau definitions.
Want to go deeper? Download the full dataset (Excel) →
1,627 individual procurement records · filterable by agency, state, fuel type, manufacturer, year · free to download