New York City School Bus Routes and Vendor Information

A dataset of school bus route information managed by the Office of Pupil Transportation (OPT) for New York City. It includes route details, vendor assignments, garage locations, and service types for students in grades K-12, excluding Pre-K services. The data is provided by data.cityofnewyork.us and was last updated in April 2026.

Use Cases

• Analyze vendor market share and affiliations across different school years using Vendor_Name, Vendor_Affiliation, and School_Year columns.
• Map garage locations and their distribution by zip code or city using Garage_Zip, Garage_City, and XCoordinates/YCoordinates.
• Track the implementation of new routes or changes in service over time using Route_Start_Date and Route_Number.
• Compare the allocation of different Vehicle_TypeDescription (e.g., standard vs. specialized buses) by Service_Type for students with IEPs.
• Identify routes pending garage assignment by filtering for NULL values in garage-related fields like Garage_Street_Address.

Strengths

• Includes geographic coordinates (XCoordinates, YCoordinates) for spatial analysis.
• Contains multiple service dimensions: vendor, vehicle type, service type, and garage location.
• Data is sourced from the official New York City open data portal (data.cityofnewyork.us).

Limitations

• Pre-K student bus routes are excluded from the dataset.
• Some route records may have incomplete garage assignment data (NULL values).
• Specific bus route paths are omitted to protect student privacy, limiting detailed path analysis.

Provenance

Source

data.cityofnewyork.us, managed by the Office of Pupil Transportation (OPT).

Collection Method

Derived from a snapshot of a transactional routing system used for planning and vendor management.

Time Range

Coverage includes multiple School_Year periods, with specific Route_Start_Dates.

Freshness

Last updated in April 2026, indicating regular maintenance.

Geography

New York City, with garage locations specified by street address, city, state, and zip code.