SEPTA’s bus numbering system is a relic from the streetcar era

While waiting for his SEPTA bus, Jake McGovern, 28, noticed at least three routes go by his corner in Point Breeze.

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He wondered if route numbers had any particular meaning, maybe seven indicated a north-south route, and nine meant east-west.

“There has to be some logic to it,” he thought.

No amount of looking at the bus maps proved helpful in deciphering the pattern, so McGovern asked Curious Philly, The Inquirer’s forum for questions about the city: “Is there any rhyme or reason for the SEPTA bus numbering system?”

Places like New York City have bus lines with a combination of letters and numbers that show the borough they serve: Bx (Bronx), B (Brooklyn), M (Manhattan), and even S for Staten Island.

Philly, on the other hand, has always vibed to its own logic, even when that might mean not having one.

SEPTA operates more than 120 bus routes, including the lines to the suburbs. But, bus numbers in Philly don’t indicate where routes go or what streets they operate on, according to SEPTA spokesperson John Golden.

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SEPTA bus numbers above 90 are lines driving to the suburbs.

The routes below 90 were formerly Philadelphia Transportation Company streetcar routes, Golden said.

The bus numbers in Philly are a relic of a time when Philadelphians moved through streetcars pulled by horses.

Back then, the lines were named in the order they were introduced, Billy Penn reported in 2020. When bus routes replaced them, the route numbers were retained.

For areas with new bus routes,letters were assigned as the route identifier. Eventually, new bus routes were numbered in the high 80s, Golden said.

The letter system ended in February 2025, when SEPTA renamed bus routes named after letters into numbers, turning:

Upon hearing the explanation McGovern said, “Oh, jeez” between laughs.

“It’s kind of a letdown, but it’s funny that it worked out like that,” McGovern said. “I imagine the randomness is probably useful to other people in the city as well because it makes it very unique.”

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