Ponce SITRAS (Sistema Integrado de Transportación del Sur) is one of the most successful stories of public transportation and multi-modal mobility in Puerto Rico. SITRAS was envisioned by Ponce’s mayor María Meléndez Altieri (2009-2020) after a successful campaign run in which voters demanded access to public transportation services. Planned and designed by MTCG’s transportation planners, Ponce SITRAS is a trunk and feeder system where buses provided fixed route service along trunk routes and público operators connect at transfer stations to provide feeder services to outlying communities. Feeder services are vital for the operation of SITRAS because even though most of the urban area of Ponce falls on flat land, tens of thousands of residents live in the many communities outlying in the steep mountains that surround the urban area to the west, north and northeast of the municipality. SITRAS also provides bicyclists with the necessary infrastructure to travel with bicycles as its transit buses include bike racks to facilitate intermodal mobility and the Municipality installed bicycle racks across major activity centers and along trunk routes.
SITRAS initiated in February 2012 with three trunk routes providing service to the northwest, north and northeastern limits of the urban area of Ponce and 11 feeder routes. An additional trunk route serving the southwestern communities was added in August 2012 with four additional feeder routes. On April 2013, SITRAS reached the million boardings mark, showcasing its success as an inclusive public transportation service and it has quickly become an icon of the city of Ponce
