In January 1975, UMTA Administrator Frank C. Herringer announced the prototypes would be used to create a composite performance specification for Transbus and that new bus procurements would need to meet the Transbus specification to qualify for federal subsidies; his intent was to quash GM's competing RTS bus design. GM was undeterred and continued development of the RTS, and Herringer soon left UMTA to head the Bay Area Rapid Transit District. One of his successors, Robert E. Patricelli, quietly encouraged GM to continue developing the RTS; by that time, GM already had concluded the Transbus project requirements were impossible to implement. GM made its first sale for the RTS to a consortium of transit agencies in May 1976; GM was the sole bidder for that contract.
