Assistance program
Bus Testing
$43.0 Million committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- Federal Transit Administration, Transportation, Department of
- Assistance
- Project Grants
- CFDA number
- 20.529
- What it does
- The purpose of the program is to provide assistance for testing new transit bus models and reporting on their maintainability, reliability, safety, performance (including braking performance), structural integrity, fuel economy, emissions, and noise performance characteristics. Per 49 U.S.C Section 5318(e), amounts appropriated or otherwise made available under this chapter may be obligated or expended to acquire a new bus model only if that model is tested at the Bus Testing Facility and the bus achieved a passing test score based upon the performance standards for maintainability, reliability, performance (including braking performance), structural integrity, fuel economy, emissions, noise, and safety. The program is administered under FTA’s implementing regulation at 49 CFR Part 665, commonly referred to as the Bus Testing Regulation.
- Who benefits
- Same as eligible applicant.
- Who applies
- The Pennsylvania State University.
- Authorized by
- The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, enacted as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), continues the bus testing facility program, which funds one bus testing facility for testing new bus models for maintainability, reliability, safety, performance, structural integrity…
- Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022 provided $2M for additional funding for the Bus Testing program. Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, enacted as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), Part 665, Section 5318. This program is administered under FTA's implementing regu…
Committed by fiscal year
* FY2026 is year-to-date — the fiscal year is still in progress, so its total is still filling in. The striped band and dashed line mark that provisional stretch.
Top recipients
By dollars committed.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments