These cities have agreed to participate in Valley Metro as a unifying brand name to streamline service and reduce confusion among riders.

Valley Metro, as an integrated regional transit service, did not begin operations under its own brand identity until 1993, when the RPTA board of directors chose that name, the logo, and color scheme as described below.

At this time, Phoenix Transit System and Mesa Sunrunner were rebranded as Valley Metro, and several new routes operating under the RPTA were started.

Originally, the buses of one of Valley Metro's predecessors, Phoenix Transit System, were painted with orange and pink stripes, and a logo on the sides, rear and front, featuring a character known as "Tico", which was a sun wearing sunglasses and a sombrero.

This scheme is similar to the previous scheme except that the "V" has been removed (it obscured visibility from inside the buses in many cases), there is only a green stripe around the bus, the Valley Metro logo is displayed on the front, rear, and rear sides of the bus, and the sides are lettered "Valley" in purple and "Metro" in white.

All new buses delivered to the RPTA from 2006 onwards feature a new interior very similar to that of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACMTA) but with darker tinted windows, no Transit TV (since all Valley Metro divisions except for the City of Phoenix divisions and Valley Metro Rail prohibit advertising), and blue seat fabric (as opposed to the "rainbow" seat fabric used on LACMTA buses).

The new logo as well as the new shades of green and purple were introduced on the Valley Metro LINK arterial bus rapid transit service, as well as a new interior color scheme.

The scheme consists of a silver body with a green and purple swoosh going from forward of the front wheel to the rear of the CNG tanks.

In 2010, the City of Tempe introduced a variant of the new Valley Metro scheme with a green front instead of silver on one New Flyer L40LFR.

They differ from the RPTA- and Tempe-owned fleet in that the body is mostly painted white and the green and purple swoosh wraps around the front and rear of the bus.

2019 saw an updated version of the LINK scheme for RPTA-owned buses, this time with a darker shade of purple with the swoosh becoming lime-colored.

That began to change in 2001, when Valley Metro expanded to Sunday service in Phoenix, Glendale, and Scottsdale, with Tempe having Sunday service since 1999 (this resulted in large part from the approval of the Transit 2000 Regional Transportation Plan (RTP), which involved a new 0.4 percent sales tax in the city of Phoenix, with the other cities approving similar measures around the same time).

In 1989, a referendum took place in the RPTA constituent cities on expanded bus services (the fleet size would nearly have been tripled) and the implementation of elevated rail as part of a plan called "ValTrans".

[7] The locations of three of Valley Metro's most heavily traveled bus routes (before the December 2008 start of light rail service) would have been the elevated rail lines' paths, and referred to by these color designations: Funding for would have come from a sales tax plan with a set expiration and reapproval date by 2019, a 30-year authorization period.

Concerns about noise, cost, and overall effectiveness were prominent, as well as voter frustration over the lack of progress on existing road and freeway construction.

Similar referendums were later voted down in 1993 and 1997, although Tempe voters passed a half-percent sales tax dedicated for transit (which partly allowed officials to study light rail) in 1996.

In 2000, the Transit 2000 Regional Transportation Plan (RTP), which involved a 0.4 percent sales tax, was approved by voters in Phoenix.

Valley Metro Rail operates a 29.8-mile (48.0 km) route between the cities of Phoenix, Tempe, and Mesa.

The system was most recently expanded in January 2024, with three additional extensions in the design or pre-construction phases, with expected opening dates ranging from 2025 to 2030.

To handle overflow demand, some trips on Valley Metro Paratransit and Phoenix Dial-A-Ride are outsourced to local taxi companies or to non-emergency medical transportation providers.

[12] The primary outreach effort of the Rideshare team is the Maricopa County Trip Reduction Program, which seeks to reduce traffic impacts on air pollution and emissions throughout the Valley.