New on-demand shuttle services are popping up in NJ. What's microtransit all about?

A new microtransit pilot project that launched last month in Trenton will offer shuttle services on demand through an app that could eventually be expanded to Newark, Paterson and other locations in New Jersey.

Four battery-powered shuttles and one van for people with disabilities will be deployed to kick-start the GOTrenton! service, offering rides for $2, with the first being free. The grant that is funding the pilot will pay for the shuttles, which look like large, six-seat golf carts; drivers, who are local hires; and 14 low-cost public electric vehicle charging stations throughout the city.

Ben Haygood is the director of policy and partnerships at the nonprofit Isles, a Trenton-based community development organization that has created the program through years of focus groups with residents about the kind of transportation services they need.

If the pilot is successful, Haygood said, the group hopes to take this model to other cities.

“We’re hoping we can have a GONewark!, a GOCamden! and GOPaterson!, but I think before we get to that point we’re going to have to upscale to the geographic scale that I’m talking about,” Haygood said.

Microtransit refers to tech-driven shared transit, which can be scooters or bikes or, as in this case, an on-demand shuttle service with flexible routes hailed through a smartphone app, similar to Uber or Lyft. Cities are increasingly promoting such services to provide a form of public transit to areas that are not served by traditional transit lines or where agencies have cut back service.

Trenton transit options limited, for-hire costly

For many in Trenton, using traditional for-hire vehicles or owning a car is cost-prohibitive, and public transportation options can be limited, with excessive wait times between buses or trains, Haygood said.

NJ Transit announced in August that it would be scaling back the River Line’s peak weekday service to a weekend schedule so trains operate every 30 minutes, because it doesn't have enough operators and its broken-down light rail vehicles require custom-built parts. Some trains are returning to the weekday schedules this week.

“When you work in the social services and affordable housing area for so many years, certain things are recurring themes, and transportation always comes up," Haygood said. "A lot of times it’s literally just getting folks to the services that they need. There is a significant portion of the population that relies on ad hoc technology to get places, borrowing, carpooling, staying with other people to utilize their transportation services.”

He hopes this program will give people their time back.

The service, he said, should be fast enough to provide a fourfold saving in time compared with the current routes people must take to get to work, medical care or the grocery store.

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How it will work

Residents in need of a ride must first download the app Circuit, which is the name of the company that hires the drivers and will operate the microtransit service. Circuit has launched similar services throughout greater New York City, including in Williamsburg, New Rochelle and Montauk. Haygood said the group hopes to add a call-in service so those without smartphones can call a number to order a ride.

App users can then order a shuttle, much as people do to order Ubers or Lyfts. The app, Haygood said, will “tell you to go to the hotspot, which is usually a block from where you are, and drop off about a block from where your destination is.” Those ordering the accessible van will not have to rely on hotspots and will have the vehicle show up at their location.

Riders will pay $2 per ride through the app, and Haygood said the goal is to have refillable debit cards for those reliant on cash.

To start, the service will be available from Wednesday through Saturday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., with plans to scale up the number of days and hours.

A map of the area that will be serviced by GOTrenton! is available on the app and is only a portion of the city, but Haygood said the plan is to add more vehicles to cover a larger service area in Mercer County.

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Sustaining the program

Haygood is armed with a grant of $883,000 from the state Department of Environmental Protection and some foundation donations to fund the program for the first year. Other grant opportunities, from the Board of Public Utilities and elsewhere, have been identified for next year, but coming up with sustainable funding sources will be critical to widening the program and keeping it running.

Most other microtransit programs that are similar to GOTrenton! rely on a subsidy with the municipalities they are serving. For example, Jersey City subsidizes its Via on-demand microtransit shuttle service with a $7.5 million contract.

Haygood said that since the turnover of the members of the Trenton City Council earlier this year, there is more buy-in at the city level and “we’re starting this conversation” about the program’s funding needs.

Augment, not replace, traditional public transit

Microtransit’s rise in popularity can be attributed to the sophistication of the technology popularized by Uber and Lyft and also, in some cases, service cuts in public transportation that have left many communities without access.

“My thought on microtransit has always been the idea should be to provide better service to people who need it than what is currently provided,” said Joshua Schank, a managing principal at Infrastrategies, a consulting firm that works with agencies around the country on innovations like microtransit.

Among the concerns with microtransit is whether it will take customers away from traditional, fixed-route public transportation, such as that offered by NJ Transit.

Schank said the role of on-demand shuttles should be to augment traditional public transportation, not replace it, adding that planners have to determine what kind of transit — whether fixed-route or microtransit — makes the most sense for a particular area.

“A lot of agencies are saying, ‘We’re running these buses as if people were commuting to 9-to-5 jobs in downtown areas, but they’re not.’ They’re not doing it five days a week; that’s for sure,” he said.

“Meanwhile, there are increases in trips outside of the peak, there are increases in trips that are not to downtown, they’re shorter trips within people’s communities, so microtransit is a very effective means to potentially providing that service in the post-pandemic era, which is the service that most people need,” he said.

First-mile-last-mile solutions

Nearly half of the trips by those using Jersey City’s Via service have connected people to transit, said Eric Gardiner, a Via representative who gave a presentation about the service to the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority in January. This is what planners call “first mile-last-mile solutions,” referring to the way people get to or from fixed-route rail or bus options.

That, said Mike Manzella, the director of transportation in Jersey City, was the intended purpose.

“It is serving the populations it was designed to serve," Manzella said in January. In 2022, ridership grew 23% over 2021. “The Via Jersey City program is really showing it’s enhancing, not taking away from, existing fixed-route services,” he said.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: What is microtransit? New on-demand shuttle service in NJ