It serves 26 stations in the cities of Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Milpitas, and San Jose, traveling between Downtown Mountain View and Alum Rock stations, stopping at Ames Research Center, Great America, and Levi's Stadium along the way.

The line connects to Caltrain at Mountain View and to the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system at Milpitas station.

Tasman Drive becomes Great Mall Parkway in Milpitas and eventually becomes Capitol Avenue in East San Jose.

For the rest of the trip, the line follows Great Mall Parkway and Capitol Avenue until it reaches its eastern terminus at Alum Rock station.

[6] In 2014, a new storage track and crossover was constructed between Old Ironsides and Reamwood as part of improvements to support events at Levi's Stadium and the future Silicon Valley BART extension.

[8] Ahead of the opening of the Silicon Valley BART extension to Milpitas station and Berryessa/North San José, the Orange Line was created.

Starting in early 2019, station signage was changed reflect the new configuration, displaying line colors rather than terminus icons.

[9] VTA has proposed a future extension to this line which would extend the line 2.4 miles (3.9 km) south along the median of the Capitol Expressway from its current eastern terminus at the Alum Rock Transit Center to the Eastridge Transit Center with one intermediate stop at Story Road.