Centre Area Transportation Authority announced a partnership with natural gas supplier UGI Energy Services Thursday that will see the authority’s fleet of 60 buses and six service vehicles make a permanent switch to an emissions-saving fuel source.
The partnership, which was celebrated by local officials with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at CATA’s headquarters at 3180 Research Drive, means that all of the authority’s buses will switch their fuel sources from fossil-based compressed natural gas to renewable natural gas, an organic source.
RNG is created by capturing methane emissions that naturally occur at landfills and farms. The emissions are processed, conditioned and cleaned of impurities to meet gas quality requirements, and then liquified for transportation fuel, according to a press release from CATA. While CNG is still clean, its fossil base means that significant emissions are still being created.
David Rishel of the Centre Area Transportation Authority (CATA) talks about the partnership with UGI Energy Services to convert the bus fleet to RNG on Thursday, Sept. 25, 2025.
“This is a really important milestone for CATA,” authority executive director and CEO David Rishel said. “[RNG] is a gas that would otherwise be vented from landfills into the environment, so why not capture it and use it as fuel for public transport? It makes a green option greener, and provides cost savings.”
CATA projects the swap from CNG to RNG will save 3,089 tons of CO2 emissions annually and achieve a 99.5% reduction in bus fleet emissions. Only around 15 tons of annual emissions are estimated to be released by the fleet.
This isn’t the first time that the authority has made a fuel swap though — in 1993, CATA made the then-risky move to switch from a diesel-fueled fleet to a CNG-fueled one. In 2005, the transportation authority became the first of its kind on the East Coast with an entire fleet running solely on CNG.
A fleet of CATA buses on Thursday, Sept. 25, 2025.
“CATA has been a long-time leader in energy innovation, and I’d like to say that they’ve been an initiator when it comes to natural gas-powered buses too,” U.S. Rep. Glenn Thompson, R-Howard, said at the event, adding that the authority’s switches to CNG and RNG “took vision and courage.”
Thompson was also joined by state Reps. Paul Takac, D-College Township, and Scott Conklin, D-Rush Township, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation Executive Deputy Secretary Larry Shifflet and NGI’s Vice President of Energy Marketing and Supply Kelly Beaver, who all lauded CATA and UGI for the innovative partnership and fuel swap.
Larry Shifflet from PA Department of Transportation talks during the announcement of the partnership between Centre Area Transportation Authority and UGI Energy Services to use RNG on the buses on Thursday, Sept. 25, 2025.
