Shop Notes · Original Data
Nobody in this industry will give you a fuel economy number for a shuttle bus, and the reason is not that they are hiding one. The EPA does not rate cutaway buses, so there is no sticker, and most builders have never had one measured. The federal Altoona test measures it. Here are our numbers, what each one means, and the one mistake that makes most comparisons worthless.
Every car and light truck sold in the United States carries an EPA fuel economy label. A shuttle bus does not, because it is built on an incomplete chassis in a weight class the EPA does not rate for fuel economy. The chassis maker ships a cab and frame with no rating, the bus builder adds the body, and the finished vehicle never goes through an EPA fuel test at any point. Ask a salesperson what a 25-passenger bus gets and the honest answer is usually a guess.
The exception is the FTA Altoona test. Any bus sold to a transit agency with federal money has to pass it, and the test includes a fuel economy measurement run on a dynamometer over three standardized driving cycles. The results are published in the test report, and the reports are public. That makes Altoona the only source of standardized, third-party fuel numbers in the segment.
An Altoona fuel economy result is three figures, not one, because a bus that lives in downtown traffic and a bus that runs an airport loop are doing completely different work.
Your real-world result lands wherever your routes do. An operator who runs the Orange County pattern and adds a daily highway leg should expect something between the second and third figures.
The MAVRYK on the Ford E-450 chassis went through the current Altoona 7-year / 200,000-mile test with the 7.3L gas engine. Measured fuel economy:
Those are the numbers for a fully built, seated, air-conditioned bus at test weight, not a bare chassis. We publish them on the MAVRYK page and the compare grid because they are the only kind of fuel number worth publishing: measured by someone who does not work for us.
For the STRYKR on the Ford Transit T-350, HLE's own test is in progress. In the meantime, the current-protocol Altoona report for a comparable Transit 350HD cutaway shuttle (report 2021-11) shows 7.6 / 10.5 / 13.0 mpg on the same three cycles. That gap between a Transit cutaway and an E-450 cutaway is real and is the single biggest reason a 14-passenger operator should look hard at the smaller platform before defaulting to an E-Series. The Transit body is narrower and lighter and the 3.5L engine is doing less work.
We do not publish figures for KAVLYR or STRATOS. There is no current-protocol report for an F-550, F-600, F-650, Freightliner S2C or International MV607 shuttle in the public record that we have found, and we will not print a number we did not measure. When KAVLYR goes to Altoona, the number goes on the page.
Altoona changed its fuel economy protocol in 2016. Before that, the test used a different set of cycles (Central Business District, Arterial and Commuter) that produce numbers roughly 60 to 70 percent higher for the same vehicle. A pre-2016 report on a medium-duty cutaway might show 6 / 6 / 10 mpg. Put it next to a current-protocol 4.7 / 6.5 / 8.1 and the older bus looks thriftier. It is not. The two sets of numbers were produced by different tests and cannot be compared at all.
So when a competitor's brochure or a dealer's PDF quotes an Altoona mpg figure, check the report date. If it is before 2016, it tells you nothing about how that bus compares to one tested today. If it is a current-protocol report, compare cycle to cycle, Manhattan to Manhattan, and you finally have a fair fight. How to check any builder's Altoona report walks through where to find the date and the fuel table.
Pick the cycle that matches your route, use that figure as the planning number, and budget fuel on it. If you are choosing between platforms, ask each builder for a current-protocol Altoona fuel result. If they do not have one, that is an answer too. Then remember that fuel is one line: a bus that burns two extra gallons a day but is still on the road in year eight costs less than the thrifty one that got parked in year five because the floor gave out. Cost of ownership is where those lines get added together.
It depends on the route. HLE's MAVRYK on the Ford E-450 measured 4.7 mpg in dense stop-and-go (Manhattan cycle), 6.5 mpg on a mixed suburban route (Orange County cycle) and 8.1 mpg on an urban-plus-highway cycle (HD-UDDS) in the federal FTA Altoona test. A comparable Ford Transit cutaway measured 7.6 / 10.5 / 13.0 mpg on the same three cycles.
Cutaway buses are built on incomplete chassis above the weight class the EPA rates for fuel economy, so there is no window sticker. The only public, standardized fuel numbers in the segment come from the FTA Altoona durability test, and only for buses that have been tested.
Only if both were tested under the current post-2016 protocol. Reports before 2016 used a different set of driving cycles that produce numbers roughly 60 to 70 percent higher for the same bus. A 2011 report showing 10 mpg and a 2025 report showing 6.5 mpg may describe buses that burn fuel at the same rate.