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Unitrans

Transit system serving UC Davis and Davis, CA

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionNov 22, 2025
Entity authorityQ7893703
Source-derived summary

Unitrans is the transit system which operates in and around the campus of the University of California, Davis. It takes its name from an abbreviation of the words "University Transport". Excepting several managerial and maintenance positions, Unitrans is managed and operated entirely by students of the University of California, Davis who usually work part-time while attending school. The system is well known throughout the area for its use of several distinctive ex-Transport for London double-decker buses, as well as its fleet of modern natural gas single-decks. The system has 18 weekday, 1 school-centered and 6 weekend routes. Current fares are $1.50 for the general public and included in student fees for undergraduate University attendees. Unitrans is one of a small number of transit systems in the United States to operate double-decker buses in regular (non-sightseeing) service. Unitrans has one of the best safety records of any public transit system in the US.

In 2025, the system had a ridership of 3,887,100, or about 16,200 per weekday as of the second quarter of 2026.

History

In the late 1960s, members of the Associated Students of the University of California, Davis (ASUCD) realized the need for a transit system to transport students between the City of Davis and the university campus. In the spring of 1966, providing a transportation system became an ASUCD presidential promise.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Unitrans” is transit system serving UC Davis and Davis, CA. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Unitrans, Transit and system, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2025, 2026, 1966—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1972. For this dossier, Unitrans, Transit and system is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “transit system serving UC Davis and Davis, CA” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 22, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7893703. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2025, 2026 and 1966.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Unitrans”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Unitrans primary sources, Unitrans archive and Unitrans research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Unitrans”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Unitrans” 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.