We most often associate bus services with big cities, where buses play a key role in managing traffic flow by reducing the number of private vehicles on city streets. Bus services can be important in small cities, too, providing transportation for the disabled and those without access to private vehicles. Buses provide those citizens with easier access to jobs, doctors’ offices, hospitals, grocery stores, shops and even airports.
The roles of big-city and small-city bus systems are different, but equally important.
Knowing that, it’s not quite so much of a surprise to learn that the first municipally owned bus services were found in San Francisco and Monroe, Louisiana, of all places.
There are only three municipal bus services in the state, located in Jackson, on the Gulf Coast and in Starkville.
The Mississippi State University Area Rapid Transit (S.M.A.R.T.) doesn’t exist to reduce traffic, obviously. It exists to provide transportation to improve the quality of life for citizens and visitors to both Starkville and the MSU campus.
The SMART bus system was an expansion of the university’s campus bus service. It started with a single city route in 2014 but has expanded to six city and four campus routes over the years. One of its most important milestones came in 2015, when the system began curb-to-curb service by reservation for non-drivers — people with disabilities and the elderly. It started a route to the Golden Triangle Regional Airport in 2016, which proved important for the hundreds of international students at MSU.
A dozen years ago, there was some justified doubt about the success of a bus system in a city the size of Starkville.
No one seriously questions its value now. The system has continued to grow and evolve since its start.
SMART is closing in on a half-million rides per year (455,000 in 2025, a 7% increase from 2024). Its paratransit service provided 6,478 rides. SMART provided more than 4,000 trips to the Golden Triangle Regional Airport in 2025.
All those numbers are likely to increase in 2026.
Given all that, it’s hard to overestimate the importance of SMART to the city, the university and, most important of all, the citizens whose transportation options were extremely limited.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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