SALISBURY — At the 2022 Salisbury City Council retreat, one of the topics on their priority list was to implement a microtransit pilot project to figure out if an alternative transportation system would be feasible for the city. After hiring AECOM to evaluate Salisbury and how microtransit could work on a local level, city staff came to council during Tuesday night’s meeting to request that the pilot project proceed to permit funding to be finalized and to start the process of hiring a third-party vendor.

Instead of a fixed route using public vehicles, Salisbury is looking at starting an on-demand ride share service similar to Uber or Lyft where people can be picked up and dropped off exactly where they need to go, making it more convenient for riders. Transportation Director Rodney Harrison presented to council what they believe to be the best course of action.

Salisbury would use the Transportation-As-A-Service method (TaaS), where a company hired by the city would be in charge of a majority of the operation like drivers, vehicles and management. The other option would be Software-As-A-Service (SaaS) that only utilizes software from a third party, but the city would supply the vehicles and drivers.

While the consultants recommended the SaaS model because Salisbury has the resources for it and costs would better controlled in-house, Harrison actually asked council to move forward with TaaS since the city would receive over $2.7 million more from the Mobility for Everyone, Everywhere in North Carolina grant fund. 

“Transportation is changing and technology-based solutions are the wave of the future. Microtransit is an opportunity to re-engineer public transportation while being flexible to meet our community needs,” Harrison said.

The total amount Salisbury will receive is $2,895,000 over three years. It will only cover route No. 3 which goes through Salisbury, Spencer, East Spencer, the VA Medical Center and the Novant Rowan Health Medical Center. Door-to-door pick up will be available for people who qualify for ADA paratransit service, everyone else will have virtual bus stops as their meeting points. If a person using the service needs a ride outside the service area, there is a planned transfer site that connects to those other routes. The expected wait time for pick up is 20 minutes and an average trip’s duration should be around 30 minutes.

One of the concerns of having the microtransit system is how it would affect the city’s State Maintenance Assistance Program funds. Harrison advised that they would continue for at least the next two years with the North Carolina Department of Transportation Integrated Mobility Division stating they are working on making sure places that have transit systems don’t lose SMAP funding. 

Over the next few months, the NCDOT will work on finalizing the grant agreements and city staff will send out request for proposals to a third-party vendor to run the pilot program. The earliest start date for the program is Jan. 1, 2024.

“This is one of the few situations where you can provide better service, hopefully, at a lower cost to more people. That’s a great outcome. That’s a win, win, for the city and for the person using public transportation,” council member David Post said.