The term "midibus" is not in common use in the United States; such smaller and lighter-duty buses are not used for
public transit there except in some very specialized instances. For example,
Muni in San Francisco operates both and versions of the
Orion VII transit bus to serve routes that include some of the steeper and curvier hills. In charter / tour roles, there is indeed a gap between the minibus (12–28 seats) and the touring coach (47–50 seats). Several shuttle bus companies such as
Goshen Coach and Crystal have manufactured rear-engined vehicles with 30–35 seats, but no generic term has ever been applied to them. They are usually lumped together with smaller "minibuses", and called "minibus" or "shuttle bus". The only other alternative was to import a "short" (two-axle) version of European touring coaches, known often as "baby coaches", around long and equipped with some 30–32 seats. These include the TEMSA TS 30/TS 35 and the MCI J3500. In the 2000s, some manufacturers introduced mid-sized bus models based on large truck frames. ==Models==