SEPTA
Philadelphia regional public transportation authority
The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, abbreviated as SEPTA, is a regional public transportation authority that operates bus, electric trolleybus, streetcar, light rail, light metro, rapid transit, and commuter rail services for nearly four million people throughout five counties in and around Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It also manages projects that maintain, replace, and expand its infrastructure, facilities, and vehicles.
SEPTA is the major transit provider for Philadelphia and four surrounding counties within the Philadelphia metropolitan area, including Delaware, Montgomery, Bucks, and Chester counties. It is a state-created authority, with the majority of its board appointed by the five counties it serves. Several SEPTA commuter rail and bus services serve New Castle County, Delaware and Mercer County, New Jersey, although service to Philadelphia from South Jersey is provided by the PATCO Speedline, which is run by the Delaware River Port Authority, a bi-state agency, and NJ Transit, which operates many bus lines and a commuter rail line to Philadelphia.
SEPTA has the sixth-largest U.S. rapid transit system in the nation by ridership, and the fifth-largest overall transit system in the nation, with about 302 million annual unlinked trips as of 2018. It controls 290 active stations, over 450 miles (720 km) of track, 2,350 revenue vehicles, and 196 routes. It also oversees shared-ride services in Philadelphia and ADA services across the region, which are operated by third-party contractors, Amtrak, and NJ Transit.
SEPTA is the only U.S. transit authority that operates all five major types of terrestrial transit vehicles: motorbusses, trolleybuses, light rail trains, rapid transit subway and elevated trains, and regional commuter rail trains. This title was shared with Boston's Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, which also ran ferryboat service, until trolleybuses in Greater Boston were discontinued in 2023, leaving SEPTA as the sole remaining U.S. transit authority operating all five terrestrial transit vehicle types.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “SEPTA” is philadelphia regional public transportation authority. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through SEPTA, Philadelphia and regional, not as a finished interpretation.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2037863. VIAF identifies the subject as 159444199. The Library of Congress control number is n80061094. 2 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2018 and 2023.
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This entry incorporates text from “SEPTA” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.