The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, also known as SEPTA, is a metropolitan transportation organization serving people in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, area. SEPTA offers mass transit opportunities in the form of bus, subway and commuter rail service. SEPTA is the fifth largest transit service in the United States. For the fiscal year ending June 30, 2011, SEPTA's buses, subways, trolleys, and trains carried 334 million passengers, up 4 percent from the previous year and the most since 345 million in fiscal 1989, according to "The Philadelphia Inquirer."
SEPTA serves the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and many of the areas surrounding it. Residents of Delaware, Montgomery, Bucks and Chester counties all benefit from the use of SEPTA transportation. New Jersey and Delaware residents also use SEPTA. Different services are available to each of these areas; however Philadelphia is the only city that is able to take advantage of all the different types of mass transit offered by SEPTA.
SEPTA offers five major types of public transportation in one metropolitan area. These include trolleys, buses, rapid transit trains, light rail trains and commuter rails. Each of these modes of transportation are available to all the residents living in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, area. Part of the system in the city is a subway.
SEPTA was created by the Pennsylvania legislature in August of 1963. From that point the organization began absorbing all of the other services available in that time. In March 1976 SEPTA acquired the last of Philadelphia transit services. SEPTA has not been without its issues and problems. In 2009 a workers strike crippled the transit system in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, making it hard for millions of commuters to make it to work during that time. After six days the strike was resolved and the transit services began to operate as normal.
