NEW ORLEANS - People who take the Broad Street bus line in New Orleans noticed a change Wednesday morning.
The Regional Transit Authority is adding five state of the art buses to its fleet. The new city buses are up to 25 feet longer.
RTA leaders are putting these buses where more people are using the bus line.
Officials say they've seen a dramatic increase in ridership on the Broad Street line up to 48 percent from last year.
The buses made their debut Wednesday morning when they picked up passengers along one of its busiest routes.
Officials say the bio-diesel vehicles were purchased with government stimulus money and they boast a smooth ride and comfortable seating.
The RTA says the new fleet is equipped with GPS tracking devices and video monitoring to make sure the buses are on time and the passengers we talked to called them strange but cool an overall improvement.
"It was a different,” said Lawrence O'Neal, “I enjoyed the ride."
"At any point and time we can pull tape passenger location, behavior another important feature we have is we monitor every bus throughout the day," said Justin Augustine, RTA CEO.
The new buses can seat 62 passengers, a total of 130, standing up. Officials say the buses will remain on the Broad Street line but may also be added to the Tulane Avenue and General De Gaulle Drive lines by next month.
