Charlottesville Albemarle Regional Transit Authority Meeting   9/25/2025

We are reporting, I would like to involve the September 25th and 25th of Charlesville Albemarle Regional Transit Authority meeting to get voted.

Welcome everyone.

Our first item of business is always introductions.

And so, so I don't forget, I'm going to ask the people that are on Zoom to introduce themselves first.

I'm going to take you, Garland, give you a break.

So if we could have the people on Zoom introduce themselves.

I see Katie and Grant and Taylor.

I'm Katie.

Taylor.

There I am.

Okay.

And Gretchen, Gretchen Thomas, TJPBC.

Okay.

Welcome everybody.

Our first item really on the agenda, as far as a vote,

is acceptance of the agenda.

So would I have, do I have a motion to approve the agenda?

So we have a motion by Ryan and a second by Natalie.

Yes.

Councilor O'Shaughnessy.

Yes.

Yes.

And we have next two meeting minutes to approve

except for May the 22nd and except for July the 24th.

I have, um, I wasn't at one.

Okay.

So let's vote separately on the two, two, um, dragon man minutes.

And I would like to have a correction made to the May 22nd minutes.

Um, we have on the first page, Sarah Duncan and that name should be changed to Sally Duncan.

Oh, okay.

So with that, if there are no other edits or corrections, I'll entertain a motion to approve the May 22nd minutes as amended.

So moved.

Second.

All right.

So we have a motion by Mike and a second by Natalie.

Councilor Ostrom?

Yes.

Yes.

All right, the next set of minutes, July the 24th.

And I don't have any changes to those.

Does anybody else have any minutes or questions or discussions?

None?

Okay, so I'll entertain a motion to approve.

So Mike is moving to approval and second from?

Second.

From Bryant.

Am I right?

Councilor Ostrom?

Stayed.

Councilor Pinkston?

Yes.

Supervisor McKelvie?

So we then can work on that.

That's excellent.

We do not.

If anybody in this room or online would like to make a public comment, you can raise your hand.

People online, there's like a raise your hand button at the bar at the bottom of the screen.

You didn't make the same mistake I made.

Mitch Hubber from DRPT.

I don't think Mitch wants to comment.

Taylor, who is at the table.

As we start this, just for everybody's clarity, this is being presented to us for information and consensus and questions, any comments or questions we might have.

That's correct.

We're here to present just a little information on how we review the proposals and what the staff's recommendation would be.

It was advertised for a vote.

So this is really for information and just discussion.

Right.

Our thoughts.

All right.

Good evening, everyone.

I'm here to give you an update on our transit service prioritization and implementation study on the review of our proposals and our recommended selection.

So we will briefly cover the study scope of work.

Just as a quick reminder, I'll go through that proposal overview.

We will talk about the proposed study team structure, stakeholder engagement, and then those next steps.

So just as a reminder, CJPDC abide on behalf of CARTA for

a technical assistance grant from the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation for a prioritization study that would principally look at the regional transit vision plan and look at those routes that were developed as part of that and give us an implementation outlook for that.

So look at the costs, look at the capital and the operating costs for that and really give us a roadmap.

Task one would be service identification and prioritization.

So going through not just the regional transit vision plan, but if there are any other studies that have been completed just to make sure

we understand the current priorities of transit service and then we would develop those prioritization criteria.

So looking at a very broad planning level cost estimate and then looking to you all to help us understand what are some of these metrics and criteria that we want to consider when we prioritize these services.

Next we would develop that implementation plan with the detailed cost estimates and finish with a draft and final plan document.

Taylor, I should have asked you all questions as we go along.

I think if we go along we'd be good.

I have a question.

We talk about in the first bullet the constrained and unconstrained.

Those studies have obviously been completed.

They have very different price tags.

They do.

Both of them are sticker shop, but they go very different.

So when we talk about

the scope of this work.

They're going to be looking at the constraint and the unconstrained.

And I guess I'm trying to figure out, are they choosing one or the other?

Help me a little bit with my understanding.

So in the scope of work, our understanding was we want to look at all of the potential services that have been planned so far.

And we would use that prioritization step to determine

which ones are the ones that we would want to proceed that would be the most feasible.

And so at that point of cost would be a barrier or would be a reason why we wouldn't want to prioritize that.

At that step, that's when we would kind of take those out.

And I don't even know if it's possible.

This is just kind of lack of doodles.

But

Could it be that we would look at something and end up coming back to us with something from the constrained and something from the unconstrained, perhaps?

Yes, we're not selecting one network.

Okay, that's right.

We're selecting services from those networks.

We're doing prioritization.

Thank you, Dan.

That was the right answer.

That's what I wanted to hear.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Great.

Yeah.

Thanks.

Any other questions right now?

Oh, sure.

Thank you, Gretchen.

As far as our timeline, we received notice that we were approved for this grant back in July.

So as of July 1, we had a grant contract in place with DRPT.

Also in July, we sent out the finalized proposal to DRPT's bench.

They have five consultant teams on their bench that we share that with.

This month in September, we have just finished the proposal review and now we're at the consultant selection stage.

I'd love to see a picture of the DRPT bench.

So we received proposals from four of the five consulting firms that are on DRPT's transit planning bench.

The only firm we did not hear from was WSP.

Three of these firms included sub-consultants on their proposal.

So AECOM and Michael Baker both included the same sub-consultant, Jarrett Walker and Associates, and RKNK proposed three sub-consultants on their proposal, Nelson Nygaard, Cambridge Systematics, and WBA Research.

We also included in the final scope of work a not to exceed cost, and that was $180,000.

And so, as one would expect, all of the estimates came in around the same.

We did give them that number.

For the proposal review and evaluation that was conducted by the Carto Working Group as well as transit agencies, we really recognized and valued everyone's feedback and prior experience working with a lot of these project teams.

Many of the folks on the review team had prior experience working with them for some other study event.

We had a scoring matrix that evaluated five criteria, project schedule, project scope, experience and project team, budget and estimate, and local presence.

Local presence was one.

that we really heard articulated from you all being here in person is really important and having that previous experience working in the region was very important.

So we wanted to make sure that we captured that.

And just by the scores already shown on this slide, you can see that RK and K scored the highest, but in the next few slides, I'll talk through a few pros and cons for how we arrived at that decision.

For AECOM, they also included the sub-consultant Jared Walker and Associates,

for strengths.

They did have a very strong overall proposed project approach.

Jarrett Walker led the regional transit vision plan and AECOM led the transit governance study.

And their proposal also included budget for in-person participation at Keep Milestones.

So one thing that we did look for in every proposal was did they have a travel budget?

Did they articulate which points they would be coming here in person for certain milestones?

So they did capture that in their proposal.

A few of the weaknesses that we noticed, they proposed additional services beyond not to exceed budget.

So they gave us the base budget and then proposed additional services to go beyond that.

Specifically, that was for the ADA paratransit service demand work, which is something that is a requirement in our mind.

And so if you expand your fixed route services, you also have to expand your ADA complimentary paratransit.

So in our minds, that should have already been included in the base work that they were proposing.

And it was included in every other proposal, just not any.

that was a weakness.

They also didn't demonstrate an understanding of the local planning context for planning and transit operations.

There were a few comments in the proposal about consolidation of services, about CARTA operating the services that just didn't align with the current landscape that we're planning in.

They also had a limit to the number of service changes that they would consider, and that specifically was from Jared Walker, which was also included on another proposal.

And some other feedback

that wasn't captured on the slide was experienced with the evaluation team.

And so we heard from a lot of different members about their experience working with AECOM on different projects and how some of that was not always favorable.

So that was taken into account as well.

Next for Kimberly Warren, they do have a Charlottesville office.

So that was a strength for them.

However, it is a new office.

They just opened it and primarily it has civil engineers and not the planners that were proposed in their proposal.

So that was strength and weakness.

They have demonstrated positive experiences with the project team over time.

All the relationships that have been built over time we thought were very strong.

They completed the CAT strategic plan and TJPDC's comprehensive safety action plan, which is wrapping up at the end of this month.

And the proposal, as the previous one, also included that travel budget for in-person participation.

But other than their project office being, their project team being located in other project offices, their proposal also appeared to be Charlottesville centric.

There wasn't a lot of acknowledgement of the other transit systems that we have in the area, such as JOT, such as UTS.

Some of that demonstration of understanding the local planning context was met in here.

For Michael Baker, they also included Jarrett Walker in Asynciots as a sub consultant on their team.

Michael Baker and Jarrett Walker led the Regional Trans Division Plan, as we noted previously, and their proposal did include that travel budget that we were looking for.

Weaknesses for this one.

So as mentioned also on the AECOM proposal, Jarrett Walker and Associates limited the number of service changes that they would commit to evaluating.

So that was a weakness and little interest in support with past projects was also something that we took into consideration.

Do you have a quick look about that?

They would use all three.

And they had different responses on each of them.

So for strengths for RKNK, there's a lot of really deep institutional knowledge and their project team, specifically their project manager who worked for

the state at both DRPT and BDOT for many, many years.

They also are currently conducting a statewide rural transit strategy, which they are currently involved in that work.

They're deep in the transit work that's going on across the state, which we thought was very strong.

For their sub-consultants, Nelson Nygaard is conducting scenario planning activities with CAD currently.

So they're very deep in the work with CAD.

Cambridge Systematics, they have experience working with DRPT for their transit capital methodology.

For many years, they worked on that.

This proposal also had the strongest public engagement approach, specifically with how they proposed approaching the survey and getting that input from the public.

And they also had a higher travel budget and commitment to regular in-person participation with stakeholders at 2000.

That was very strong.

The only weakness that we identified for this one was that proposing a three sub-consultant team to split the $180,000 budget might be stretching it a little thin for meaningful participation from all of them.

that could be something that we look at negotiating.

Do we know if, you can go back a slide.

Yes.

Do we know if RK and Kay has experience working with these three sub-control?

That was my exact question.

Well, I know from experience, RK&K, the project manager that they proposed, has worked with Cambridge Systematics for years when she was at DRPT.

So she's familiar with that team.

Nelson Nygaard, RK&K is currently working with them, and they worked with Kat on the Lono grant that they submitted to FTA recently.

So you'll see sub-consultants when there is really specialized work.

Like you might find a firm that's very good at a very niche thing that maybe the larger consultant group doesn't have experience in and to make their proposal stronger, they'll bring in other people.

And so I'd say it's pretty normal.

You would want to seek demonstration that they were able to tackle all of those things by themselves, which is something that we've looked at with Jim Lienborn.

They didn't provide a piece of consult as part of their proposal.

Right.

And also their project team, they have individuals who have worked for the state.

And they don't have an office here, but they have committed to being a person, which gets to that last moment.

So that's my question.

Okay.

Correct.

Yeah.

And so they did allocate it to the direct expenses, but we, that's something that we articulated was important.

And so we were happy to see a higher travel budget.

Over the years, we've had so much trouble with the consultants.

They zoom in, the connections are bad.

It's just not been satisfactory.

Garland's not in his head.

So it's really important they're here.

But I agree with you.

I noticed the higher travel budget, but I understand that.

Oftentimes, the project managers are out of state.

Exactly.

They're not coming in person at all.

So I think it's really, I think this is great.

I appreciate it.

And I doubt that the higher travel budget out of the athletes, higher

All right, systems recommendation would be RKNK for the reason that we stated before, especially considering not only their past experience, but the work that they're currently involved in, in the region and statewide.

their institutional knowledge is something that will be very valuable for the study as well and their commitment to that in-person participation.

So before we issue the notice to proceed, I mentioned previously, negotiations can still occur.

We can still ask them if we want to see certain tweaks in their proposed scope of work before we issue that notice to proceed.

And we specifically want to communicate in-person expectations at certain points of the study.

We would want to communicate that with them.

Next, I will go through briefly the proposed study team structure.

And so as this is a study being guided by CARTA, we have CARTA at the top there as the decision making body for the study.

We have TJPDC next administering the grant on behalf of CARTA.

And then all of the individuals that would be on the project technical team proceeding through with all the work would include Charlottesville staff, Albemarle County, transit providers, and state support.

on the state support meeting, meaning VDOT and DRPT.

And typically when we have a grant with the state, they'll usually have a point of contact that they assign to that grant as well.

And so on this slide where you see Tiffany Debensky under state support, she's a staff member who was assigned to this project.

And I'm sorry.

Yeah.

Speaking of team members, um, the group that came up with the rankings for the consultants and that rubric and all of that, did you mention who that was already?

Yes, I had it on here.

It was Carter working group members and also the transit agency.

Yes.

and everyone provided their own evaluation, but we did discuss.

So what can CARTA expect as far as the board participation throughout the development of this study, other than you all being the authoritative body providing guidance and your concurrence here today with our selection, there are different points throughout the study that we anticipate you all will be providing feedback on.

So in task one, service identification and prioritization,

Weighing in and helping us select those prioritization criteria, whether that might be something like cost-consuming criteria, equity, mobility, those sorts of things, we would look to you all to help us come up with those.

The approval of what services are selected that get prioritized and tasked to for the implementation plan.

We'd also look to you to weigh in on short, mid, and long-term implementation guidance, what seems most feasible in each of those timeframes.

and then finally in Task 3, this body would approve and adopt that final plan document.

For public and stakeholder engagement, we have recommended presentations at the study's midpoint and conclusion at certain bodies.

That includes the City of Charlottesville City Council, Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, all of the MPO committees, and TJPDC Rural Transportation Advisory Committee.

We have a public survey that's included in the scope of work and the project team also has plans to maintain an up-to-date email with THIRV so we can communicate study milestones.

We can share the survey and we can share information as the study progresses.

So next steps, as we mentioned at the beginning, we're just looking for your concurrent or if there are any other questions that you will have before we issue that notice to proceed.

So we will coordinate with DRPT after this meeting on getting that.

So typically we have email lists that we use whenever we are sending out notices for our meetings, or if we have surveys that we're running, we just have a writing list of folks who we send things to.

When we first were on the slide a couple back about the review and evaluation and all the scores from the different companies, AECOM and Michael Baker were down here and then Kimberly Warren and RK and K were kind of necking them.

A lot of it was past experience specific to AECOM and Michael Baker.

Past experience of the evaluation team went into that a lot.

We did have discussions.

It seemed like those two rose to the top for everybody.

I mean, the conversation between just those two.

Yeah.

So I think we all had a comfort with either of them doing the work.

I think what it really came down to was past experience with RK&K and that they are currently involved in a lot of the transit planning work, which definitely, yes.

And that will make a huge difference also when it comes to our schedule.

That makes sense.

Yeah.

Right.

So it looks like, do we have a question?

Feedback and consensus for the most part.

I think our biggest concern is probably just the schedule and making sure we stay on schedule with the study.

Anyone want to say anything?

Is there a reason it has to take 20 months?

We would anticipate, if I can step in, Taylor, a preliminary report that would come back earlier in the 20 months that might inform carbon discussions regarding the general assembly mass.

because to your point, Mr. Kingston, 20 months is a long time.

And so we talked to the consultants about that and they're able to bring us preliminary information back in a period, at about this time next year, right?

About this time next year, which would allow part of, would inform CARTA's discussion about going to the general recycling.

So 20 months is really from

the beginning and how and when we get the actual final growth.

So there'll be work that we can be doing along the way.

Right.

And then, theoretically, it's directly in the GA.

So that, so like,

We do all the work in the next year to get ready for whatever we might need to ask the General Assembly.

Whatever that turns out.

I believe you have consensus.

Thank you all.

That's great.

Thank you.

Excellent.

All right.

And then, really, the next agenda item was the appointment letter from DRPT, which I think the folks that were at DRPT's appointing to CARTA are not surprising.

And we're thrilled to have them.

And there's no need for us to do anything.

It's not as if we're approving Katie and Brad of their being appointed by DRPT.

So is that spelling right?

I'm sorry.

I think on Zoom it's Grant and on here it's Grant.

It is Grant.

It's Grant.

It's a Zoom.

OK.

Good catch.

All right.

So we have the letter in our packet, so we can just move on from there.

Welcome aboard.

And the next item is our

Really excited to be here.

My name is Mike Longuet.

I'm the partner success manager for VIA.

And so I work with Garland and Ryan and Kevin from the city of Franklin County.

And really, we're focused on on-demand transit to supplement the fixed route in the county.

And so a lot of this will be familiar to James Garland

and we're in our executive business review, but really what we're focused on today is focused on operations.

So what's the current service, who does it serve and what are some of the benefits and how has it changed over time since the launch?

And actually, I'm not sure if you're able to see her, but my teammate Ariel, who's the general manager is also here.

So when it comes time to question and answer, she'll be a great resource as well.

I can hear you.

Hi, everyone.

Thanks for having us here tonight.

Excited to be presenting with Mike about the MicroCat service.

I've been working on the service since we launched almost two years ago.

And as general manager, I'm responsible for making sure that we have drivers and vehicles on the road.

We're providing a great rider experience and running an efficient service.

So excited to share more and to answer any questions you may have.

Thanks, Ariel.

And so just to introduce myself in terms of role, really, I work with MicroCAD on the strategic side.

So when it comes to making sure that you all are seeing value in the partnership, contracting, that's my wheelhouse.

So just to kick us off, we know that we're operating not just in the city or this county, but in a broader state.

And so we work with DRFT.

We work with a whole lot of other agencies across the state, like NEOC and Appalachia or WADAS.

And what this means is that over time, we actually do get to have a chance to better understand just the area in the commonwealth.

And so this is something that we're really proud of.

And so hopefully over time, we can help ensure that the service in MicroCAT informs other services and vice versa.

For instance, when it comes to talking about commingling,

talked to Kenya, Winchesters.

OK.

Sure.

And I guess we can interrupt you and ask questions as well.

Is that OK?

Lynchburg.

That's what I wanted to know.

Was it familiar to us?

Yeah.

The others aren't very much, though.

And so at a high level, front-of-the-service launch

MicroCAD's gotten really popular.

And so wanting to note is that it took about 12 months to reach 50,000 rides.

It took only about seven months to get to 100,000, which is a milestone that we actually passed recently over in July.

And so service is ramping up, and the word is out.

And people really love this service.

And one of the key reasons for that is the ride call, where if I'll, I'm not sure if you can see my cursor,

Something that we're noticing is really high engagement.

So when we look at something like retention, what that means is that almost 80% of people who ride MicroCat once, ride it again.

And even in terms of average per month.

On average, each rider takes about 10 rides per month.

And so people are coming back to the service because it's really filling in a specific gap and complementing that fixed route service.

Another thing that I'd love to call out here is that

not just in terms of average rating, but whenever they rate it in the app, you know, like with other services, you can rate one to five stars.

Over 90% of the time, people are saying five stars, love the ride.

Thank you so much.

And then finally, just in terms of the actual customer support, we have a CSAT or customer satisfaction rate of over 98%.

So when they do have issues, when they do have questions, they're able to get answers in a timely and prompt way.

So really just want to celebrate how a lot of we're seeing these numbers in terms of

Great, people are writing, but it's because it's useful and because it's impactful to them.

And here we're highlighting some of the key destinations.

So, Marielle will tell you in every service that she operates, Walmart is almost always the top destination.

And there is going to be a lot of stats in the presentation, but I also want to pull out a quote from here, which was

At the bottom here, MicroCat allows me to continue my volunteer work in our community, as well as giving me the freedom to live my life as a non-driving senior citizen.

And so again, like we have plenty of impact metrics and we're always happy to share more, but I think at various points during this presentation, we also want to call these quotes into the air because this matters.

And so we can get a lot of the sense from the stats, but I always want to make sure that we're pointing to those as well.

And we'll have more.

we have more granular side on the origins and destinations towards the end as well.

And so in addition to giving people access to places that would be difficult to reach otherwise, the demographics are also showing that this service is impactful for the people who need it the most.

So of the survey that we did, which we do roughly every six months, over seven out of 10 people don't have a personal car to use.

And almost three out of four people earn less than 50,000 per year.

and 40% before having a disability.

And so on the same side, this is an example of a person where this service is really impactful, where they said, I'm a disabled senior that can't drive.

I don't have the ability to walk to a bus stop.

MicroCAD has given me back an independence that I thought I had lost for good.

And so again, like hopefully we're able to show both the data side, but also the qualitative side that this is really serving something and providing rides that people aren't able to do otherwise.

And here we have a more granular look at some heat map data in terms of origins and the destinations.

And for any questions after the meeting, we're also more than happy to pull that up through a remix or to just share additional information.

Because for any one of these points, we can also click on that and expand into, let's say, for the Walmart 2%.

What's the starting map or what are the trip patterns for people going there?

Where are they coming from?

So no surprise, Walmart is at the top.

and also Mallside Forest Court apartments, number two.

We were talking before the meeting about TJ Maxx, Rio Hill Apartments.

And so if you look at the trip patterns as well, there are a bunch of different ways that people are getting connected.

So for instance, in some cases, they're going all the way from Pank Mountain, all the way to the right of the map, down through the downtown area.

And sometimes they're making shorter trips, like from here to here.

If you're interested, please reach out.

And we're more than happy to actually go through any number of combinations you'd like to see in terms of, oh, well, like where are people coming from in this area?

And we're so happy to go through that together.

Origins and destinations.

Are the majority of these rides single occupant?

Because I know that they're not always just one person going to one place.

Exactly.

You know, the last time we actually talked about AIDS, it's an average of about 3.7, 3.8 average riders per trip.

So they're sharing rides.

That's exactly what we want, you know, that's great.

And then there are different ways of looking at that.

We can look at either what percentage of rides have some amount of sharing.

So for instance, if I take a 20 minute ride, did I share the van with another person for 10 minutes?

And we can also look at the utilization in terms of per each van, how many rides are they serving per hour?

Yeah, because we were talking about cats reached to that shopping center the other day and because of whatever agreement there is with the people who own that shopping center, they don't like the buses going in the parking lot.

So the thick sprout service,

drops people off behind and then they have to walk all the way around and it's not as convenient, of course, as getting dropped off right in front.

So I wonder how much of that, if the regular fixed route buses were able to go to that, that's where TJ Maxx is still there or not.

I think it's still there.

So those are right next to each other.

And the property owner just along the large buses on the property because of the

Yeah, it should damage the parking.

That's my understanding.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because we have that in several places.

And of course, again, these are static maps that we included for this presentation.

But truly, for anyone curious, please reach out to us for any destinations.

Yeah.

And if one thing we're proud of, and that, again, I say we,

Credit to Ariel.

Ariel did this.

And so one thing that we're excited about is how, with the same spend, MicroCAD has become increasingly efficient.

So this is what we were talking about in terms of rides per hour.

So for each ride, so for each hour that a vehicle is operating, June 2024, there are about 3.4 rides per van hour.

And that increased by over 20% to this June to 4.1.

and that's a little bit theoretical or it's abstract, but what it actually means in practice is that with the same budget, we're serving rides for more than a thousand people with that increased efficiency.

So that increased efficiency is actually translating to higher impact and connecting people to more places.

So again, credit to RAL and the operations team and their field managers, where this really just means more impact for the same spend.

And actually RAL, if you can hear me, I can kick it to you for some

Sure.

So yeah, we're always looking for opportunities to optimize and to run more increasingly efficient service.

And so there are a lot of different levers that we looked at here.

One of the first things that we did early into the service is very grateful to Cat for providing a depot, but the depot was about 20, 30 minutes outside of the zone.

And so we were losing some time.

We call that dead head to get to our first pickup and at the end of the day, to get back to the depot at the end of the day.

So we identified a lot.

right near the library on Rio Road.

And so that's become a much more central location.

Our deadhead has gone down significantly.

So that's been like one initiative.

Another initiative is continuing to improve supply demand matching.

And then lastly, our algorithm continues to get more and more efficient, looking for opportunities to aggregate more and more trips, especially as we see increased demand.

Thank you.

Mike, if you want to go to the next slide, I can speak a little bit more to supply demand matching.

So one of the things that's really cool about microtransit is that we have the ability to be very nimble and to respond to the demand patterns that we're seeing.

So the demand is not the same at all times of day.

The blue bars are what our demand looks like.

So you can see it really peaks in that afternoon from like, you know, one to about, you know, six o'clock.

and so we've made sure that we're stacking our maximum vehicles and our maximum supply and you know kind of budgeted hours against that peak time period.

So we've arranged our driver shifts so that we're meeting that peak demand.

Yeah.

Yeah, you're kind of getting at it with this slide a little bit, but I had a question about like service levels and average response time.

Yes, it is.

And so I think we have a slide later on to address this a little bit more.

But we're seeing that our unmet demand, so as demand grows, we're not able to provide a proposal for everybody who wants to get a ride at that specific time.

So we're seeing that our unmet demand is starting to creep up.

Just as demand continues to grow, I think we've optimized pretty much as best as we can for efficiency at this point.

And there's just trips out there that we're not able to serve with the number of vans that we have.

and then we've also seen wait times creep up from being you know maybe in the you know mid to high teens to being now like in the low 20 minute range.

What's the wait time that causes problems for people not wanting to use the service?

Yeah, so we think that anything over 30 minutes is excessive.

Really like 25 minutes and under is where we want to aim to be.

I know that Garland and team, we've talked about potentially aiming for even lower wait times, but there's always a trade off then.

If we reduce our average wait time, we won't be able to serve as many rides.

We'd be turning away some rides that we could serve, for example, with that like 25 minute wait time.

And I was just going to say that one of the advantages I'm seeing is that as you're getting more people in one car, you're taking more cars off the road, which is really good environmentally.

That's the whole idea.

Not to have single people in a car going places, right?

Well, so if you go back a couple of slices, 71% of these people already don't have a personal car.

So

It's making it more accessible, but not necessarily taking cars off the road.

But what we were just talking about kind of gets the inherent unscalability of MicroCat, which is something we talked about back in June at the RTP meeting, where more vehicles induces more demand to reduce wait times and people use it.

But then we get back to this point of it's just as many cars on the road as you know.

There's that flex point where it's no longer

where it just becomes the same as if everybody had a personal vehicle.

Well, you are taking civil cars.

Okay, great.

Thanks.

Is if you increase your supply of microCAT vehicles to meet demand and keeping up with that, then you are getting back to a level of everyone having their own personal cars.

So that's the inherent unscalability of it, which is why the scope of microCAT needs to be very specific in terms of like where it goes and who uses it.

One key difference would just be that these are shared rides.

And each vehicle is making about four different trips.

So imagine four different people in this room are sharing that van between 5 p.m.

and 6 p.m.

And then it's going to help four other people right after that from six to seven.

So really,

Yeah.

I was going to say, microcarbons design is a shared by service model.

So it was, it's designed to encourage people.

The algorithm is designed to make sure that it efficiently gets on the path from point A to point B by adding more bodies.

So if you're not going to

Taylor wants to go to TJ Maxx as long as I'm in the path, they will go get her and me and then take us there.

It's better.

It's better.

Yeah, and if I can chime in on just a couple quick things here.

I think definitely heard on the environmental piece, and I think that's part of why there was such a big push for the service to have Toyota Siennas, which are hybrid vehicles are the most fuel efficient minivans on the market right now.

So hopefully that is also having a net positive compared to some other vehicles that would be on the road, single occupancy vehicles.

absolutely resonate with everything that's been shared around the vehicles being shared.

Our vans are extremely busy.

They're very full at most times, which is why we're not able to meet a lot of that demand today.

And on your last piece around scalability.

I think we all agree that microCAT is a mode within the transit network.

It is not aiming to replace other modes.

It's aiming to complement those modes and to serve that first mile, last mile and to serve suburban, less dense areas that would be less efficiently served by fixed route.

Yeah, thanks.

Oh, 100%.

And I think really this slide is about that where it's a little bit apples and oranges between fixed route and this on demand service where they're complimentary and there's no world where there's a van that can bring 60 people down a highway from point A to point B much more efficiently than an on demand service.

But there are also different areas that are less dense where it wouldn't make sense to run that van for two people an hour.

And so those are really the areas where

on demand services, complimentary and more efficient than let's say a bus going once an hour carrying two people from point A to point B. And so I think really when it comes to the whole design of the network this is where we can compliment that service.

So that can move people in huge volumes along high ridership corridors.

And then instead of running a

fixed route, let's say every 90 minutes, every 60 minutes for that coverage piece.

That's where on-demand service is really helpful because that can be more efficient, both in terms of cost and providing really high quality trips that people wouldn't be able to do otherwise.

And even chatting with the team today, there are possibilities to fine tune this even further.

So for instance, if there were a fair, could there be specific points to really bring them to a bus terminal to say, again,

Let's say it's $3 for a fare, but it's free if you go to a bus terminal.

What are the ways that we can really complement that service so that it's truly serving that purpose of first mile, last mile?

And you are working within the constraints of certain areas because it's not just open.

There are only certain areas that you all go to so that there is a constraint on how you're able to serve.

And I really appreciate the comment about the environmental, the vehicles that you're using.

That's great.

We don't want to be everywhere.

Mike?

So I'm just thinking here through the way we distinguish public services from private services.

They're normally

There's structural changes and there's like incentive shifts, right?

Structural changes I see

one, maybe two, right?

There's the limited footprint that kind of restricts your costs, which helps deliver more efficiently.

And there's the forced ride sharing with other participants.

And then incentive changes, like that gap, Uber wouldn't countenance that gap.

They would actually make their cost of service higher in order to close that faster because that scales them.

Those are the two structural changes and one kind of incentive shift are the cost savings that they deliver over Uber.

Are there others?

Because you have like a dozen so on models across the Commonwealth.

Are there other methods of

of costs saving that are structural or incentive shifting like that, that you see inside of your other models, because you have very different models, right?

A lot of them seem to be doing like the complimentary paratransit thing, I think.

So what are some of the other methods that we're not using here?

So I think just to step back a little bit, I'll talk about different kinds of costs.

So relative to an Uber, this is providing cost savings to individuals where if I'm

I think that misses the point of interest.

So at a network level, I think a big cost saving is if you were to subsidize a neighbor or if you were to run buses every 90 minutes, every 60 minutes, this model is cheaper than that at the network level.

And it provides a higher quality service when it comes to the things that other services are doing.

There are those options that we talked about.

So one would be having set points of interest.

I was about to say, I remember the purpose of how we created the microcad model.

You were concerned or remembering how we did the study.

We're concerned about making sure that we're able to get into neighborhoods where a fixed cost service couldn't access.

That part of it has been accomplished.

So we're getting folks on very narrow streets who didn't have access, who have mobility issues, giving them into the model of increasing their mobility options, period.

Now we're in one where it's becoming so popular that we need to think about structure and so it becomes

a more of a connection point to fixed route transit is the kind of the next level.

And there are a number of ways that we started talking about getting that looked at.

One of them is, you know, right, it's free.

So that was intentional.

We wanted to make it free because it incentivizes people to take an opportunity to use the service, right?

It doesn't cost anything.

There's nothing that we lose.

But that has caused

and influx of both using the service, they like the service, and then using it more than four or five times a month, usually up to 10 times a month.

That skill of people doing that, we can't continue to have that model.

You're at a point where you're either gonna start having to add more vehicles, more hours, which is more calls,

or now we're at a point where we can actually have more of a fine tune conversation about if you do put a cost structure in model, but then we incentivize, we change the algorithm to push people towards the fixed route service, assuming that's their input, it's on the fixed route corridor, then it doesn't cost you anything, right?

We still take you from your neighborhood, which we can't get into with a fixed route bus.

We take you to a point, and that's where the frequency of the service comes into play.

So if it's very frequent on the corridor that we're trying to get to, then that makes it easier for folks to connect.

But if you're on the corridor where it's an hour service, it doesn't really make a lot of sense to pick you up and then bring you to a bus stop to let you stay a different hour, right?

Because you could have just missed the connection.

So there's that component to it.

And if it, you know, that's the algorithm we have to, we're talking about, you know, get an IT device for you to go to their algorithm.

Those are,

complicated behind-the-scenes work-throughs where they have to look at, you know, I picked you up five minutes after the hour, but the next train's bus isn't until 45 minutes, and it needs to make a choice.

Do I take you to your end destination, or do I drop you at the nearest point and you just wait 30 minutes?

Those are philosophical discussions that we need to have, and that's really

conversation, you need to have it at a different level and start those conversations.

But right now, your system is working.

It's working just how you planned it.

The facts are you're working way better than you were before that.

That's right.

And I found the comparison with Uber not a great comparison because they're very different.

Now, there's accountability with your drivers.

There's a screening process.

When I call an Uber, it could be the who knows who's picking me up.

I mean, my daughter has certainly been, had drivers come along to her in Ubers and leave her in the middle of their neighborhoods.

I mean, so there is accountability with the drivers with microcab.

And I really appreciate that.

And I think people feel that way about the, you know,

You may not like government so much.

At least this is a service that has accountability, pays their drivers, and stands behind their drivers and will take accountability for what their drivers do.

So I think that has to go into the equation as well, at least for me.

Mike, did you get your question answered?

OK, so.

I mean, I guess, you know, I didn't want to just go out and say that

Part of the conversation now, I think at the supervisor level, is tell us what's the next evolution for MicraCat.

Once you articulate that, you can start a program into how to get there.

Right.

And I think that the intent would be for the staff to work together to bring to the board some alternatives related to MicraCat.

and that will happen next year.

Right.

And probably as part of the budget process, because to Garland's point that, you know, the county and the county make, um, the county pays for this service for the county residents.

What was the cost last year?

It's currently budgeted.

I just looked it up.

It's currently budgeted at $1.4 million.

It's important.

The first two years were essentially grant funded and we're now on county funding.

because it was a three-year grant, before I started, it was a three-year grant from the state, first two years, a whole portion of it.

Those three, yeah.

The first two years from the state funding and then not anything else.

So about $1.4 million is what's budgeting.

you know, this on-demand service and other places.

A lot of places use this to identify where the demand is to then shift the resources to fixed route where they can establish that the demand is there.

but perhaps taking resources to increase the fixed routes so that it's more frequent, more reliable.

I'm not suggesting that is here.

on the flip side of that equation, I do work with another Virginia agency that did the exact inference of that, where they noticed that they were spending a lot of money on one route that was going to headways of 60 minutes.

And they realized that they could actually provide better ride quality at less money.

And so it's really a different use case that's meant to compliment that fixed route.

And it's meant to be part of these holistic network conversations about

where can those dollars be spent more most efficiently by which method.

I think it's important to note that what Mike said is that you're not reducing the budget.

You'll be literally taking it from this pot and putting it in this pot to emphasize the model of I maybe have reduced fixed job service, but I'm going to,

augmented with the pair, the on demand service.

So you're not planning off a neighborhood.

So the two things that I wanted to share, or just I was reviewing the notes from the

June RTP meeting when we talked about MicroCat.

And the number one use we were told then was for Albemarle high school students to get to school or after school to go to jobs.

And so when we were looking at the number of 71% of users don't own cars, I think a lot of that is also capturing the younger folks and the older folks who, younger folks who can't drive legally.

and older folks who can't drive anymore.

And I think those are two really good communities to help get around.

I mean, not just because it's good for them as individuals, but something we had mentioned in June was it saves on the parental opportunity cost of being your kid's chauffeur.

And if the kid can get to their own thing without having the parent come and go shuttle them,

it means that that parent doesn't have to leave work early or make that extra trip across town and that's taking cars off the road right in a in a different kind of way it's not just that can you go back to top 12 again yeah yeah so it was a different order here but still you know saving applies how long county high school is now six but i mean i guess it's also depending on

when the Senate was elected.

I think there was an earlier list when that was too.

Well, it wouldn't make sense in June, we were coming out of the school year and now we're in September, we're coming out of summer.

Walmart was always one or two.

I pulled this data from the last month, so I think it does include the start of the school year.

But then the other thing that I wanted to bring up from our June conversation was how pro se is not included in micro-cad.

And if that was something that makes you ask, like, where does the supervisors want to go next?

And if that... I believe... The job looked at some options for micro transit.

Yes.

They evaluated pro se at one of the markets.

just to change over our scheduled software within the urbanized area.

What they decided to move forward with was the pilot potentially in Green County and potentially, well, they are looking at switching their scanning software for the urbanized area.

But I know that they've gone after DRPT, demonstration funding for the Green County projects.

They were looking at it similar to how they're saying a sort of feeder into that.

Crozet Connect would serve as the commuter route that connects Crozet

UVA downtown.

But the folks who live in Crozet could get to that without having to... Like Crozet circulates are sort of thing.

Right.

Right now it picks up at places where there are park and ride.

There's the park and ride out there.

Right.

You get locked in the parking lot.

So you still need a vehicle to get you there and that service will provide it.

OK, thank you.

But I did meet with a group of students at Albemarle High School and back last winter, and they were just so excited because they were able to use my recap to go to a job and to go.

I mean, they were really impressed with it.

Of course, one of them was going to, I can't remember, it was a band practice or a drama practice or something.

I think that's all of our slides.

I think it's worth noting, also, every time we talk about transportation on a broader scale when we're trying to reach at least one of our different views.

At the root, it's a housing issue.

and being able to be proximate to where you want to be is the best way to not have to drive or be reliant on a 60-minute headway.

So this is just something to keep in mind as we go forward and make policy decisions outside of this is the more we can encourage housing commercial to where people are trying to go, the better and more efficient our fixed route service can run and the demands on micro capital change as well.

to add that.

Thanks.

It was great.

All right, folks, we have one more agenda item, which is next meeting dates.

We need to talk about how we had some

suggestions on your agenda, number six.

And just to put this, to frame this a little bit, October 23rd is the next regional transit partnership meeting because we're doing the every other month.

So the question would be, and I guess, of course, the regional transit partnership a lot of the way in some of this, but there is a meeting scheduled October 23rd

There you go.

That gets to what I was talking about.

So it's December to the 11th.

So the RTP now has a meeting scheduled for October 23rd and then December 11th.

So then you look at, so that's the last meeting of the RTP is December 11th, right?

If you look at the suggestions here, we were looking at what our November meeting might look like for a card, just to try and make sure.

Yeah, if we were to be held and it's regularly scheduled time, it's all things.

Yeah, with RGB.

To just wither this down a little bit, looking at my calendar, and you all need to look at your calendars, I can't do the 12th or the 14th, but all the other dates are open.

The 13th?

Can't do the 12th or the 14th.

The 13th actually did.

Oh, the 13th is proposed, but I'm sorry.

It's not the 14th, the 4th.

And that may have been one of the scratch-offs for me.

The 13th marks on my end.

How about... I think the 13th.

I have something on the 13th, but I think it's been canceled.

We'll get another 18.

We'll both be at the APPC stuff.

If my flight doesn't get canceled back the morning of the 18th, I'm good.

And then the 20th is also fine.

The 20th is not fine, I'm sorry.

I lied.

Same.

So how about you guys?

Do I have 13, 18?

So it's a matter of just picking one of those, right?

Sounds like it.

There isn't.

I don't know if it matters.

There isn't.

It looks like there's an EDA meeting on November the 18th.

I don't know.

I'm just letting...

I have a different board.

So 18th or 13th or 18th?

Let's, I mean, you said you have a conflict on the 13th?

I do.

Okay.

So 18th, we can use that.

I'm not a deciding factor.

Well, we need to decide.

Sure.

All right, so let's say that, let's determine that our next, the median for, not next, but for the, for CARTA, November meeting will be 80.

And is 5 o'clock still good for folks?

It should be alright.

Mike, is 5 o'clock still good?

Yes.

Because I think we had moved it to 5 for you, so 5 o'clock works.

Yes.

Okay.

So we made an assumption November the 18th at 5 o'clock.

Right.

Thank you.

Alright.

That wasn't too bad.

Alright, any other business side folks?

So, I think I'm going to adjourn.

I have no objections.

I will adjourn us and I'm adjourning us and I'm making this corrected to November the 18th.

That's right.

Yes.

Great decision.

Thank you so much for the invitation.

Absolutely.

It's good.

Alright.

Bye bye.