New Jersey Transit Corporation
14,415 employees ยท Independent public authority
New Jersey Transit Corporation is one of New Jersey's largest authorities, employing 14,415 people.
The most common title is Operator (25% of staff), followed by Asst Conductor and Oper. Median pay is $75,005, roughly in line with the statewide median. Only about 8% of its employees hold a title that matches a civil service specification. Most positions here use authority-specific, union-negotiated titles instead.
New Jersey Transit Corporation runs the state's public transportation network: commuter rail lines into New York and Philadelphia, three light rail systems, and a statewide bus network. It was created by the Public Transportation Act of 1979 to take over private bus and rail operations that were collapsing, and it has run as a single statewide operator since. Because it moves people around the clock, its payroll looks nothing like a state office agency. Most of the people on it drive, operate, repair, clean, dispatch, or supervise vehicles.
New Jersey Transit Corporation recorded 14,415 employees on New Jersey's independent authority payroll as of December 31, 2025. That is 74.2% of the 19,416 people employed across the 16 authorities in this dataset, the largest headcount of the group. The payroll breaks down as 14,071 full time, 341 part time.
NJ Transit accounts for roughly three quarters of every employee on New Jersey's authority payroll, so the statewide authority totals are mostly a description of NJ Transit. Its jobs are organized along craft lines and bargained that way. Bus and light rail operators are represented by the Amalgamated Transit Union, rail conductors by the SMART Transportation Division, and locomotive engineers by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, with separate agreements covering track, signal, shop, and electrical work. Those agreements, not the civil service classification plan, are what define the job titles listed below.
What New Jersey Transit Corporation pays
Half of the employees at New Jersey Transit Corporation earn more than $75,005 and half earn less. The middle half of the payroll falls between $64,230 and $82,368, and reported pay runs from $41,600 to $110,684. That median sits within a couple of percent of the $75,005 median across the authority payroll as a whole. Overtime is a routine part of pay here: 10,734 employees (74.5% of the workforce) recorded overtime, totaling $260,275,824, an average of $24,248 each among those who received any.
| Median salary | $75,005 |
|---|---|
| 25th percentile | $64,230 |
| 75th percentile | $82,368 |
| Lowest reported | $41,600 |
| Highest reported | $110,684 |
| Employees with salary data | 14,415 |
A small number of part time and hourly records are included, annualized at 1,040 and 2,080 hours a year respectively, so the bottom of the range reflects them rather than a low full time salary. Extreme outliers are trimmed before the percentiles are calculated.
Jobs that exist only at New Jersey Transit Corporation
13,249 of the 14,415 employees here work under titles the authority defines itself. Sorting those titles by the kind of work they cover says more about how the organization is staffed than the match rate does.
| Job family | Employees | Share of workforce |
|---|---|---|
| Vehicle operators and drivers | 4,790 | 33.2% |
| Mechanics and technicians | 1,474 | 10.2% |
| Rail conductors | 1,423 | 9.9% |
| Supervisors and field managers | 1,004 | 7% |
| Maintenance and facilities | 872 | 6% |
| Other authority titles | 660 | 4.6% |
| Administrative, program and professional staff | 643 | 4.5% |
| Locomotive engineers | 641 | 4.4% |
These families are our own grouping of the 1,287 distinct authority titles the crosswalk records here, covering 13,142 of those employees. They are not an official classification, and the shares are given against total headcount at New Jersey Transit Corporation.
Largest authority-specific titles
- OPERATOR: 4,597 employees. Bus or light rail operator
- ASSISTANT CONDUCTOR: 1,145 employees. Assistant rail conductor
- LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEER: 495 employees
- REPAIRMAN, CLASS A (GARAGE/SHOPS): 287 employees. Garage/shops Class A repairman
- CAR APPEARANCE MAINTAINER: 283 employees. Railcar appearance maintainer (cleaner)
- CONDUCTOR: 278 employees. Rail conductor
- SERVICEMAN: 249 employees
- CLEANER: 202 employees. Transit cleaner (rail/garage)
Civil service titles and authority titles
1,166 of the 14,415 people on this payroll (8.1%) hold a job title whose name matches a New Jersey civil service specification. The other 13,249 work under titles that exist only inside the authority.
A number that low says less about the work than it looks like it does, because what was compared is title text. A match is title text lining up with a published specification, not Title 11A status; the employer directory answers that question, and data sources explains the crosswalk.
The match rate here is the lowest of any large authority, and that follows from how railroads and bus systems are staffed rather than from a gap in the data. No civil service specification exists for an assistant conductor or a car appearance maintainer. The titles that do match tend to be the ones NJ Transit shares with ordinary government employers, such as police officers and electricians.
Civil service titles in use here
These are the titles at New Jersey Transit Corporation that match a published specification. Each links to the specification, where you can read the definition, the requirements, and the salary range the state assigns to it.
- POLICE OFFICER: 254 employees
- ELECTRICIAN: 252 employees
Frequently asked questions
How many people work at New Jersey Transit Corporation?
14,415 employees appear on the New Jersey Transit Corporation payroll as of December 31, 2025, which is 74.2% of the 19,416 employees across New Jersey's independent public authorities. 341 of them are part time.
What does New Jersey Transit Corporation pay?
The median salary is $75,005, with the middle half of the payroll between $64,230 and $82,368 and reported pay ranging from $41,600 to $110,684.
Are New Jersey Transit Corporation jobs civil service jobs?
8.1% of employees here hold a title that matches a New Jersey civil service specification by name. That compares title text, not Title 11A status: this authority recruits directly rather than through Commission exams and eligible lists.
What are the most common jobs at New Jersey Transit Corporation?
The largest authority-specific titles are OPERATOR (4,597 employees), ASSISTANT CONDUCTOR (1,145 employees), LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEER (495 employees), REPAIRMAN, CLASS A (GARAGE/SHOPS) (287 employees). Our authority title crosswalk records 1,287 distinct titles here with no civil service counterpart, which is normal for an independent authority: it writes its own classifications rather than drawing on the state classification plan.
Why do so few New Jersey Transit Corporation titles match civil service specifications?
The match rate here is the lowest of any large authority, and that follows from how railroads and bus systems are staffed rather than from a gap in the data. No civil service specification exists for an assistant conductor or a car appearance maintainer. The titles that do match tend to be the ones NJ Transit shares with ordinary government employers, such as police officers and electricians.
About this data
New Jersey YourMoney authority payroll, snapshot dated December 31, 2025. New Jersey Transit Corporation is not paid through the centralized state payroll, so these figures are never merged with state agency payroll on this site, and the dataset carries no hire date, so no tenure figures exist. Salary values mix annual and hourly records, and hourly rates are annualized before percentiles are calculated. Full method: data sources and methodology.
Compare with statewide workforce analytics, browse the other independent authorities, or look up a civil service job title.