Rock Region Metro has what one member of the Pulaski County transit agency's board calls a "status quo" $19.2 million budget proposed for 2019.
But several ambitious initiatives that the agency's new executive director will pursue next year have the potential to reshape how the agency carries passengers for the first time in 30 years.
Among the initiatives is a pilot project to replace one or two low-performing routes with a "flex" or "micro" transit service using existing equipment and personnel. The on-demand service would act like a ride-hailing company. Another component would eliminate short deviations into neighborhoods on main routes except when a rider requests it, serving as a community shuttle.
It is all part of an effort to make Rock Region more efficient in delivering services, said Charles Frazier, who took the helm of the agency in June.
"The first thing we have to do is demonstrate we are being as efficient as possible with public funds," he said Tuesday after the agency's monthly board meeting.
His comments came after the board heard an agency request for a 2019 operating budget that is 6.2 percent more than the 2018 budget. It also includes a 4.57 percent increase in funding from Rock Region's funding partners, which include Pulaski County and the cities of Little Rock, North Little Rock, Sherwood and Maumelle.
Little Rock would continue to pay the most, $9,650,190 in 2019, or 5 percent more than 2018. North Little Rock would pay $2,881,458, or 4.71 percent more; Pulaski County's portion would increase 4.21 percent, to $1,297,615; Sherwood ($83,835) and Maumelle ($41,273) each would pay 5.12 percent more.
The increase is needed to offset lower ridership, higher fuel prices, increased health insurance premiums, employee pay increases totaling $291,718 and three additional positions, according to Wanda Crawford, the agency's chief finance officer.
The new positions are a planning director who would serve as a federally mandated security officer, and a driver and a clerk in the agency's paratransit arm, which is a federally required service to carry passengers who are unable to use a bus. The Links paratransit service has seen ridership increase 38 percent since 2011, the last year Rock Region had an additional driver.
"It's another status quo budget while trying to address some of the federal mandates," said Sara Lenehan, a transit board member and finance director for the city of Little Rock.
The proposed budget was initially higher, but Lenehan said the board budget committee is counting on an anticipated $130,000 credit available from the Internal Revenue Service for the purchase of compressed natural gas and using reserves for $135,000 in matching money to pay for three studies since it was a onetime cost.
The board will vote on the 2019 operating budget next month.
The new efficiency model Frazier wants to implement will begin to show up early next year when the agency undertakes route scheduling analysis, including "how those buses are running on the current network," Frazier said. "We're going to look for efficiencies to save some money there."
More broadly, though, he said the agency first will survey riders, businesses and its financial partners -- Pulaski County and Little Rock, North Little Rock, Sherwood and Maumelle -- to find out what they want from public transit.
Especially for the funding partners, it will boil down to whether they want the transit system to provide wide geographic coverage or focus on where riders are already concentrated, he said.
"The first thing we want to talk about is what other transit agencies are doing across the country to deal with reduction in ridership," he said.
Agencies increasingly are turning to what is known as a comprehensive operational analysis to determine how to best manage the system when ridership is on the decline, as it is nationwide, he said.
"Agencies that pursue a comprehensive operational analysis to determine how to maximize their resources are the agencies that are managing that ridership loss," he said. "And many of them that are making the right investments are seeing increases in ridership."
The board will have to decide, he said.
"A coverage model might allow for an unproductive route that only carries two or three people, but it's important to the community that there's a bus that goes there occasionally," Frazier said. "A ridership model might look at it a bit differently."
That is where the micro-transit and community shuttle pilot project comes into play. Both were identified in a previous study, "Move Arkansas."
The project is modeled after an electronic token pilot project that began earlier this month in which Rock Region partnered with Token Transit of San Francisco to offer a free smartphone app that allows riders to purchase passes from anywhere.
To encourage riders to try the app, Rock Region is offering a 50 percent discount on a rider's first single, in-app purchase of a bus or streetcar pass through Nov. 10. The pilot program will run through spring.
Frazier said the micro-transit and community shuttle pilot project also will enlist a technology partner. The agency will otherwise rely on in-house equipment and personnel to operate the project, he said.
"The goal would be to have some conclusions by this time next year to help us build the following year's budget," Frazier said. "By this time next year, we want to have some experience with our micro-transit project so we can make a recommendation to the board on where to go with that."
He expects the pilot project to begin next year by late summer or shortly after.
At the same time, the comprehensive operational analysis will help determine how best to reroute the system based on coverage or ridership, Frazier said.
Frazier anticipates the micro-transit and community shuttle concepts will work with either model.
"There are nonproductive routes today that we can do better," he said. "We can do it with a different service. Even if the board decides not to do an operational analysis, we're still going to pursue a micro-transit project because it would be more efficient."
Metro on 10/17/2018