OSTG 2023 Reimbursements

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From May through July GVT saw fixed-route ridership vary between 41,433 and 46,229 (July numbers included as GVT only offered fare free service from the 28th to the 31st).  Overall these were increases between 11% and 23% of monthly totals from ridership in 2022.  Typically GVT sees a drop in ridership during the summer, which returns in the fall.

GVT's operations contractor has not yet sent monthly reports for September, and we are currently in the month of October.  GVT hopes that ridership remains high, showing a positive long term impact from the fare free period.

GVT_NFTS_Ridership-Documentation.pdf

August 2023 - Fixed Route
The fare free service had an extraordinary impact on fixed route service for the month of August (the impact on July ridership was hard to measure, as fare free service was only provided for 3 service days).  While, going with current trends, GVT was expecting around a 20% increased from last year, fixed route ridership was up nearly 33% from August of 2022.   GVT also anticipated greater ridership in August compared to July, as is a typical ridership pattern for GVT.  However August 2022 saw an increase of 22% from July 2022,  while August 2023 saw an increase of 32% from July 2023. Ridership numbers are not yet available for September and October.  GVT is hopeful that ridership will remain above expected levels, showing long-term impacts of the fare free service.

August 2023 - Paratransit
It is hard to know if the fare free service resulted in an increase in paratransit ridership.  GVT was concerned about the prospect of dramatically increasing paratransit service, as this might result in a need for additional capacity, which GVT does not currently have.  The OSTG program gave GVT an opportunity to experiment with fare free service to see what the real impacts on paratransit capacity would be.  GVT actually carried 74 fewer trips in August 2023 compared to August 2022.  But August of 2022 happened to be a very high paratransit ridership month.  Comparing trends in both 2022 and 2023 it appears that paratransit demand remained level.

Rider Stories
None specific rider stories collected, however the GVT General Manager stated that many of the new riders were seniors and that he experience many express their gratitude for the fare free service.

Lessons Learned
Drivers reported that there were instances of "joy-riding" where people seemed to be riding the bus without a destination, but this did not seem to result in any safety or security issues.  Drivers did report needing to provide extra guidance to people about how to ride the bus, and rules for riding on the bus. This is good problem to have as it is the result of having noticeably more first-time riders.  Drivers also reported that boarding time was much faster.  Paratransit demand appeared to not be affected.

Unanticipated Benefits and Challenges
While we did expect to see some increase in ridership as we had run shorter fare free promotions in the past, the amount of increase was somewhat uncertain. We were very pleased to see the large increase in ridership, and we look forward to seeing further impacts of the fare free program in September and October ridership reports.  Collecting fares contributes significantly to lower on-time performance.  Going fare free helped us see its benefit to service reliability. The main challenges was dealing with new riders.  Perhaps putting resources into "how to ride" materials would be worthwhile if we went fare free again.  But overall this seems like a temporary problem that will be overcome once new riders become more familiar with transit.