Knoxville Area Transit (KAT) is the operator of

public transportation Public transport (also known as public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) are forms of transport available to the general public. It typically uses a fixed schedule, route and charges a fixed fare. There is no rigid definition of whi ...

Knoxville, Tennessee Knoxville is a city in Knox County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. It is located on the Tennessee River and had a population of 190,740 at the 2020 United States census. It is the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division ...

. KAT operates 20 fixed bus routes, on-demand service, paratransit, and football shuttle buses. KAT formerly operated the transit service for the University of Tennessee, known as The T.The T - the University of Tennessee's transportation system, operated KAT
/ref> In , the system had a ridership of .

History

Public transportation in Knoxville dates back to 1876 when the first street cars of the Knoxville Street Railway Company were pulled by horses and mules along tracks on Gay Street. Since then, the transit system has undergone considerable changes, beginning in 1890 with the conversion from animal-drawn to electric-powered streetcars. In 1910, the system serviced 11 million passengers each year on 42 miles of track, introducing buses to serve the streetcar system's feeder routes in 1929. By the late 1940s, the system had mainly switched from electric streetcars to all buses, with electric streetcars making their last run in 1947. Later, in 1958, a bus service to the

University of Tennessee The University of Tennessee, Knoxville (or The University of Tennessee; UT; UT Knoxville; or colloquially UTK or Tennessee) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee, United St ...

was added to the system. The bus service continued to get upgrades, with air-conditioned GMC buses added to the Knoxville transit fleet in 1972. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Knoxville transit system went through some internal changes, first moving into a new facility on Magnolia Avenue in 1989 and then changing its name from "K-Trans" to "Knoxville Area Transit (KAT)" in 1995. From the 90s onward, the KAT system continued to upgrade, with a focus on environmental responsibility, beginning its Clean Fuels Program with the introduction of propane-powered vehicles in 2003. The next year, the KAT system was named North American Transit System of the Year by the

American Public Transportation Association The American Public Transportation Association (APTA) is a nonprofit group of approximately 1,500 public and private sector member organizations that promotes and advocates for the interests of the public transportation industry in the United ...

. In 2010, the transit system again changed facilities, moving its center of operations to the John J. Duncan Jr. Knoxville Station. In 2014, KAT introduced three hybrid vehicles into its regular fleet.

Operations

Service on KAT routes operate weekdays and Saturdays with routes 11, 12, 20, 22, 23, 31, 33, 34 and 41 and 42 offering Sunday service. All routes, except for routes 13,16, 19, 44 and 90 start at the Knoxville Station in Downtown.

Current bus routes

Gameday shuttles

KAT offers special shuttles for football games, which operate solely on specific dates. All lines terminate at

Neyland Stadium Neyland Stadium ( ) is a sports stadium in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States. It serves primarily as the home of the Tennessee Volunteers football team, but is also used to host large conventions and has been a site for several National Footba ...

. These lines are assigned the special "51" designator.

katConnect

katConnect is an

on-demand On-demand or on demand may refer to: Manufacturing * Build-on-demand * Just-in-time manufacturing, a methodology for production * Print on demand, printing technology and business process in which new copies of a document are not printed until an ...

service launched in August 2024. It serves the Holston Ridge, Cassel Ridge and Elk Hill Way apartment complexes, connecting them to nearby bus stops.

The LIFT

KAT offers

Paratransit Paratransit (also community transport in the United Kingdom, or intermediate public transport) is a type of public transport service that supplements fixed-route mass transit by providing individualized rides without fixed routes or timetables. P ...

LIFT service for those persons who are unable to use regular fixed-route buses. The LIFT is by reservation only, and you must be certified by KAT to use the service.

Fares

Cash fares are $1.00 for adults and $0.50 for seniors and disabled people. Day passes and 30-day passes are available using a katpay card or the Transit app.

Knox County Schools Knox County Schools is the school district that operates all public schools in Knox County, Tennessee. History Before the 1987–1988 school year, the city of Knoxville and Knox County operated separate school districts. In that year the tw ...

students can ride for free through the Youth Freedom Pass program. Fares for Football Shuttle buses are $10.00 round trip and must be paid using the Transit app.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Bus transportation in Tennessee Transportation in Knox County, Tennessee Transportation in Knoxville, Tennessee 1967 establishments in Tennessee