 Thank you everyone for joining us today. I'll just introduce myself quickly. My name is Jamie Smith and I am the Director of Planning and Marketing for Green Mountain Transit. Also on the call is Chris Damiani. He is one of our transit planners and Dan Jones from Sustainable Montpelier Coalition. The project that we are going to be talking about is very much collaboration between Green Mountain Transit, Sustainable Montpelier Coalition and Vermont Agency of Transportation. So today's agenda, we're just gonna start by talking a little bit about the current service that GMT operates in downtown Montpelier. A little bit of the service area summary, a history of the microtransit project, some current route performance of the three routes that we're talking about. And then a brief introduction to microtransit including a feasibility study that was conducted, a service model scenario that was studied in that feasibility study, a timeline of the project, and then we'll open it up for some questions and comments that folks might have. So to start, I just wanna say GMT operates several routes in downtown Montpelier, but today we're actually just gonna be focusing on three. The reason for that is we are proposing to replace these three routes with the 82 Montpelier Hospital Hill, the 92 Montpelier Circulator, and then the Route 88 Capitol Shuttle with this microtransit project. The other routes that we operate downtown will remain operational as they are now. So the Montpelier Hospital Hill Route for those who are not familiar is a service that runs from downtown Montpelier to the hospital Hill area, Berlin Mall, Berlin Shas, and Blue Cross Blue Shield. That service operates Monday through Saturday and currently has a fare of one dollar. The Route 92 Montpelier Circulator is two loops that operate in the downtown Montpelier area. They serve the Hunger Mountain Co-op, the Community College, Montpelier Pool and Recreation Center, and National Life. And that service currently operates Monday through Friday and is free. The Route 88 Capitol Shuttle is our seasonal service that operates between the Vermont Department of Labor Park and Ride, the State House and National Life. So that operates seasonally during the legislative session and it's every 20 minutes from Department of Labor and that route is also free. In addition to those fixed route services, we offer some non-emergency medical transportation, which is transportation services or Medicaid eligible folks. We have a call center at GMT. Folks do have to call and schedule those trips. And then we operate some elderly and disabled services, which is for folks 60 years and older and individuals with disabilities. And those trips are for non-medical appointments, usually to meal sites, senior centers, shopping, pharmacy and additional daily needs. So you can see in this service area, the three routes that we're talking about. And then the outline of this is the proposed service area for micro transit. And so this is about a seven and a half mile radius in downtown and it goes up to the hospital hill area. So just to talk a little bit about how this project came about, in 2018, the Vermont Agency of Transportation convened a micro transit working group to explore the possibility of on-demand transit in Montpelier. You can see from the participant list, there were lots of people involved in the start of this working group, including Sustainable Montpelier Coalition, Capstone, the city of Montpelier, et cetera. So that group in December of 2018 issued a request for information to seek potential technology vendors for micro transit. And in the end, they were able to work with two of those vendors via Entransloke. And through the work they did with via Entransloke, this group was able to develop a white paper talking about the benefits of micro transit. Via Mobility was the company that was engaged further. VTrans used them to conduct a service analysis and a feasibility study to dig a little deeper into what this potential pilot project would look like. And last, after the feasibility study, VTrans submitted an application for a federal grant that would support the launch of on-demand micro transit in Montpelier. Unfortunately, they did not receive that grant, which brings us to where we are now. So VTrans took the opportunity to engage GMT further in the process. And they asked us to be the primary operator for the pilot project. And so we took into consideration the strong local support for this project and the support by elected officials. We have lots of engaged community partners, as I've mentioned, which will be integral to the success of micro transit. And so GMT and Sustainable Montpelier Coalition will take the lead on the marketing and outreach efforts. And a lot of the communication for this project. So then our biggest consideration is those three routes that we're talking about, the hospital hill, the circulator and the Capitol Shuttle are none of those three routes meet the successful performance metric, according to VTrans metrics that they give us every year. So they look at lots of factors to determine if a route is successful or acceptable or underperforming, including two that I've listed here, which is boardings per hour and cost per passenger. And so they look at these metrics and they determine if the resources that they're allocating to these routes is being used properly. And so you can see that Montpelier hospital hill and circulator sort of fall somewhere in between acceptable and successful on their chart. And the Capitol Shuttle is slightly below acceptable. So it allows us the opportunity to take the funding that we're given and operate this in a more passenger friendly way. So the three routes that we're talking about make up about 75% of our rural system, sorry. And so losing those three routes would be a huge impact to the rural system. That impact is made even greater by the fact that we transferred some service this last July to RCT. And so we no longer operate the Route 100 commuter or the US two commuter or two services in Morrisville. So the percentage of service that we're talking about is pretty large for us. Brief introduction to microtransit for those who are not aware. It's an on-demand travel model. It uses technology to help improve the passenger experience. It's sort of like Uber for public transportation. It allows folks to book their trips at a time that's convenient for them versus relying on a fixed route schedule. And something that we talk about a lot in public transit is that first mile, last mile challenge. So if folks don't live very close to the fixed route there's a challenge getting to and from that service. And so on-demand microtransit will allow you to go from point A to point B in that service area. And it's really more like a door-to-door experience. So the via mobility conducted a feasibility study. And so what they looked at were all of these metrics providing transportation in areas of Montpelier that are currently underserved. So a lot of the neighborhoods downtown they looked at the underperforming fixed route services in that area and looked at the load, the passenger load, the ridership, the service hours. And they really looked at what retiring those services would mean. They looked at that first mile, last mile connection challenge. Really the purpose is to mitigate traffic congestion, reduce parking in downtown Montpelier and is an upgrade to paratransit offerings because again, it's not relying on a fixed service. It's more on-demand door-to-door. And so the two primary goals that we're looking at for this service is increased ridership and improved quality of service for the folks in downtown Montpelier. And then upgrading the existing transportation services using the same fleet that we're currently using. So to start microtransit will utilize the small cutaway buses that GMT already uses in downtown Montpelier. Certainly there are lots of conversations at a state level about other vehicle options, electric vehicles, vans. If those opportunities become available to GMT we'll certainly consider adding to our fleet as appropriate. So the feasibility study really looked at four scenarios. Scenario one was what would happen if we just replaced the three fixed routes. Scenario two focused on replacing the fixed route service and the specialized on-demand service that we already offer in that downtown area. Scenario three looked at what would happen if we did scenario two and then there was an increase in demand. So if ridership, you can see here, if 27 trips, 27 is our peak hour ridership, what if that grew to say 35 people in peak hour? What would we need to operate that successfully? And then scenario four studied the same thing but an even greater need. So if we had to add capacity because our peak hour ridership grew to 45 trips per hour. So you can see here, it gives us all the information we need, how many vehicles, how many vehicle hours, what is the average wait time if we had three to five vehicles? GMT is really starting this project focusing on scenario two. So we'll start just assuming a replacement of our fixed route service and our on-demand service downtown. And given the metrics that we have in place right now, it's determined that we'll need three to five vehicles to operate that successfully, which would give folks an average of 10 to 15 minutes wait time. So if you look at a route like Montpelier Hospital Hill, that runs on our headways. And so this provides some flexibility and a lot more convenience for folks who might need to get to that area. So the proposed service for now, when we launched Microtransit, we're proposing that it will operate Monday through Saturday, Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. till 6 p.m., Saturdays from 8 to 6 p.m. And so those service hours were really determined by the peak ridership hours that we have now on our three fixed routes. Monday through Friday, we'll have three dedicated transit vehicles on the road all day long from seven to six. In the event that this is a really successful program from the get go, we do have demand response vehicles and additional drivers that we can utilize so we can have up to five vehicles on the road if needed. On Saturdays, we'll have one dedicated vehicle in the early morning until 10 a.m. And then we'll add a second dedicated vehicle from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. So similarly, it's a little harder to make changes on the fly on Saturdays because we don't have a dispatcher in the office, but we will monitor our Saturday ridership to determine if we need additional vehicles or additional resources for the following week. And so we will be monitoring and adjusting. So the timeline so far, again, we started this process, GMT started this process in June. And so from there, we have conducted an RFP process. We issued that RFP that went out in June and we received 11 proposals at our deadline in July. So we conducted a scoring process. We had members of sustainable Montpelier Coalition, VTRANS and GMT on that scoring committee. So together we reviewed all 11 proposals and scored them based on a series of metrics. In August of this year, the GMT board approved the implementation of the service as well as approved the RFP award. So we are working with Via Mobility on this project, the same group that did the feasibility study. And in same time, August 18th, we issued that award to Via. So right now we're in this October stakeholder public hearing and outreach process. And this coming Tuesday, I will be bringing all of the public comment that I've received on this project to our GMT board of commissioners for our final planning process. So they will review the public comment in the final service design. And then we'll start working with that microtransit advisory committee and all those partners that we talked about earlier to discuss the implementation, the marketing of this service. And then we'll spend from now until the end of December on the marketing, the technology implementation. We'll have our kickoff meeting with Via Mobility. The goal is to have them provide us some simulation, some videos and some information that we can share publicly with folks. So we can really teach people how to use this service before it hits the ground, January. It says fifth, I thought it was the fifth, it's actually the fourth. So that first Monday in January is our implementation date. And from between now and then, we're really hoping to do a lot of things. We're hoping to identify spaces where current riders might be able to house a tablet or places where folks who don't have a phone can seek information. And so we do have a modular transit center that's currently closed due to COVID. Once that's reopened, we will have both the tablet station there and a customer service representative on site to help folks navigate microtransit to plan their trips. Additionally, we have a call center at GMT. Those folks will still be available to help riders plan their trip on microtransit. And so we're really hoping to dig into this process and to teach people this new service. So hopefully that implementation is seamless for folks and really to show the benefit and the flexibility of this service. And so today is really just to talk about the replacement of our current routes. We're not really prepared yet. We have not had our first kickoff meeting with Via Mobility to talk about the actual technology at this point. I know Dan is on the call and he has seen a simulation from Via. So he might be able to answer some of those questions but we will be conducting another series of meetings once we have some of that information. And so from there, I'll open it up to questions and comments from folks. Yeah, I'm gonna start with a question, Jamie, because I've just heard this from other places. The hours of operation, at least for some limited availability, there are people who have said, well, they work longer shifts and something where 6.30 in the morning to 7.30 at night gives a lot more flexibility. Is there any way of talking about that for some other vehicles or is that your current experience and where you intend to start? So I think this is where we intend to start, Dan, but certainly we will be monitoring this regularly. And I did have a comment at our first public meeting on Monday from Jim at CVMC who was talking about his staff and their shift is from seven to 7 p.m. And so I think the standard process for GMT would be to gather some of that data. I think if there are folks expressing an interest that we should put out some, probably some survey information and do a little digging about what service hours might be most beneficial and then we'll monitor the start of microtransit and adjust from there. Sure, hopefully the community advisor committee is gonna be able to help with that as well. Oh, for sure. Jamie, it looks like there's a raised hand from Rebecca Davidson. Oh, I can't see your raised hand, Rebecca, but feel free to jump in. I think this is fabulous. Congratulations, you guys. This is a long time coming, I know, and sorely needed, and I'm just hoping it will be a success. One of the questions I have is though, how does this work in COVID times? Sure, so we will be using our same vehicles and we will have the same boarding restrictions that we currently have, assuming those restrictions are still in place in January. And so essentially what would happen is when VIA is configuring the technology piece for us, they will set that boarding maximum in the app and the app will aggregate trips. So it's going to look at people's start and end destination and it's going to dispatch vehicles accordingly. And so the app itself will prevent us from overcrowding our vehicles. Great. Okay. Thank you. Can I say one more piece on that? This was a interesting perception. We had back in early days when they were only allowing two boardings per vehicle and the fixed route system, basically like the circulator in town, only allows one trip per hour. So one of my staff members was seeing, oh, look, there are four people waiting in front of Shaws, but only two can get on and it requires a full two hour trip to get it back. But with the microtransit, as Jamie was just pointing out, that could be configured so that it could be back literally within 10 or 12 minutes to pick up the other two people, even learning so that we could triple or quadruple the number of people per hour handled even with boarding restrictions. Right. And Zoe, I see that you missed. Oh, somebody answered you. Thank you, Chris. Zoe had routes were affected. And so Montpelier circulator, the Montpelier Hospital Hill in the Capitol Shuttle. I have a question. Sure. And thank you very much for the presentation. It's, it's interesting to see this all starting to come together. I'm just wondering about what, what age. A young person would have to be to use this service. Sure. So this actually came up at our first meeting as well. Internally, GMT has a policy in place that children six and under the age of three. So we have a program that allows children as young as seven to ride the bus. It's sort of a discretion call for parents, but we do offer some services that go to and from local elementary schools. And so our restriction. We don't have a restriction because we would be able to provide the service for those kids. So, I guess what I meant is like, how old would you have to be as a, like a teenager to ride this by yourself? Oh, so I think. Honestly, I think as long as a parent is, um, Is willing and able to allow their child to read, they could read as, as young as seven. The Jamie. Um, one of the things that I talked to V on this, because we were looking for where school system support had kicked in and other places around the country for such service. And they were, they were saying where more places were comfortable was 13. You, you, you can adjust, uh, per you will. I was just saying what the national experience and, uh, tends to be allowing people to ride without parental, uh, care. Right. So at this point, we don't have a policy that would prevent anybody from riding as young as seven, but certainly, um, And I actually just this week sent that same question to via. So thank you for that, Dan, because I hadn't heard back from them yet. Um, we don't currently don't have a policy in place for microtransit. It's definitely a conversation that we started this week. And so. Yeah. Yeah. I have a 17 year old. So that, that's helpful for me. Yeah, but I'm also just curious for other parents because. Um, It would be nice if this, if this change doesn't, then eliminate certain kids from being able to use services that they've been using so far. Right. We had a question on Monday about middle school age where we had a lot of children who currently use the service to get to school. So, um, the goal would be for this not to impact any of our current ridership. Uh, so Liz has asked a question in the chat. Uh, what would the cost be for the rider? So right now, right now we haven't decided on the final fair, but it will be roughly the same as the current fair. Um, so, um, I'm just going to go back to the slide. Um, so Liz, using, setting up your ride through the transit center or through our call center would be, um, if you were scheduling your trip in advance. And so we, we have the ability to, um, configure with via how far in advance we want people to be able to book their trips. We have some programs, um, in place now where folks need to book their ride. Um, so we have a, we have a, we have a schedule here or by Friday at 4pm when we don't have staff on site on the weekends. So the, we'll probably mirror those exact same things. So folks will be able to book their trips in advance. Um, likely at least 48 or 72 hours in advance. But the, But the app will also allow for immediate response. Wanted, uh, If you book your trip by when you want to be picked up, if you book your trip, say, you have an appointment at the hospital at 11am. And you say you want to be there by 1045. It will allow you to, uh, it will give you a pickup window that would guarantee you are there by your drop off time. So you can either schedule by your pickup time or your drop off time. And if you, right, if you don't have a social, Liz is also saying if you, if you don't have a phone, there would be no way to cancel your ride. Um, do you. That's, that's a good point. So when we meet with via, uh, we will work through some of these scenarios. Um, this is not the first time that has come up, but we are hoping to have tablet stations, um, at various points in the downtown Montpelier area where folks can use folks without a phone could utilize, um, the app and they could schedule or change or modify their ride from there. At least my understanding from the, uh, Jamie was also that with the app or with the call, you can also actually do an immediate on other words. I can. It's eight o'clock in the morning. I'd like to go downtown. I can do a request and there's, uh, you know, I could probably get a ride within 15 minutes, right? Yeah, there's, yeah, they'll give you a pickup window. So it's not like I have to go 24 hours in advance. I could do it. Right. So you can, it'll be up up to 72 hours, roughly in advance. Um, up to when you actually want to be picked up. So you can book your trip anytime in that time period. Jamie, there is a second part to Zoe's question earlier about how, uh, micro transit will affect people traveling between Montpelier and Berry. Uh, So it's really just going to affect folks on those three routes. Um, You'll still be able to get to. Berry on our other services that go from Montpelier to Berry. Jamie. Yes, Bonnie. Um, I was in a group this morning where we were talking about folks were celebrating the. Uh, The social services sector was celebrating the transition to micro transit, but they had a question. If I'm in Berry and I would need to get to Montpelier, How will that intersect with micro transit? So micro transit will only be available to folks in that seven and a half mile radius of downtown. So they would still take the service, um, from Berry into downtown Montpelier. And then once you're in Montpelier, you can utilize the micro transit service. Would I schedule my ride while coming from Berry? You could do that. I guess the question is, how does the transfer occur with micro transit? Um, it depends on where folks are trying to go. But my guess, um, when we put out information, Bonnie, we, what we would suggest is, folks, um, Scheduling their trip as, uh, from the Montpelier transit center. So when that bus from Berry comes into the Montpelier transit center, they would schedule their micro transit trip from there. And that could act just like a transfer would now. So once folks get to the transit center, um, their micro transit trip or bus would pick them up at the transit center. Okay. They had some concerns about getting to the transit center and heading to wait another 30 minutes to. Once they've scheduled their rides, wait an additional 30 minutes before their next bus came. Right. The longer distance, uh, buses typically don't go off track very often. So I think if they're scheduling their micro trip, um, around the same time that they're, the trip from Berry is dropping them off downtown, they shouldn't have, um, too much of a wait at that point. Great. I'll relay that. Thank you. Thank you. So, um, Elizabeth Parker actually put in the chat. To me, uh, we will be conducting an onboard survey for folks, um, who have questions or who don't have phones. And by then we will have some answers from via, we'll have some, we'll have had our kickoff meetings so we can address some of those concerns for folks, um, at that time. Right. We've become very conscious of the needs of current riders, both for information on how this is going to work, how the transfer going to make, et cetera. So, uh, you know, as part of sustainable Montpeliers work with you as to, uh, try and assess that as clearly as possible. So the current ride, um, feel as comfortable as possible in the transition. Right. And we will be adding a page dedicated to microtransit on the GMT website. And so we will have, um, what I envision as a, an FAQ section that would, um, answer some of these common questions that we're receiving from folks. And then we can put the survey data and results up there as well. So the other thing that I put in the chat, for those who didn't read my welcome information at the top, um, I'm starting a, uh, a microtransit mailing list for folks who want to stay involved and connected throughout this process between now and implementation. So, um, I encourage folks again to sign in to this meeting via chat, but also to indicate if you'd like to be added to that mailing list. And if, if so, um, please include your email address and you can send that to me privately. If you prefer not to put it in the, in the chat. Does anybody else have any questions? Well, if they don't, I want to thank you, Jamie. That was very informative. It was a really good presentation and very helpful to understand for folks to understand it. Thanks, Dan. Okay. Well, my contact information is in the chat. Um, Dan, I'm not sure, uh, yesterday Laura put up the contact information for sustainable Montpelier coalition. If you'd like to put that in the chat as well. Um, we, like I said, we're very much working on this, this, uh, implementation together. And so no matter who you contact, uh, we should be able to answer your questions accordingly. As we, as you speak. Great. Jamie, this is Bonnie. Several things being in the chat. I'm not seeing them in the chat on my end. Oh, you're not. Okay. I don't know if others can see it or. Whether they're with you. Some of the questions Bonnie were sent to me privately. I don't know. I think the easiest thing would be for me to give everybody my email address, which is Jamie. J. A. M. I. E. At ride. GMT. Dot com. And then for folks who might want to contact you. Some of the questions Bonnie were sent to me privately. The information you just talked about with your contact information. Isn't in the chat that I'm looking. I don't see it either. Okay. Um, I think the easiest thing would be for me to give everybody my email address. And then for folks who might want to, um, contact me by phone. My office number is five four zero. One zero nine eight. Uh, so John Charisakis just sent me a question. Um, will bus drivers accept flag stops? I think at this time we are not going to allow flag stops, John. Um, I think that's the most important thing. I think that's the most important thing. Um, is the following nature of micro transit. However, if folks are, um, at some midway point on the route. Um, and going into a similar direction as the folks that are already on the bus, I think they'll be able to just schedule their micro transit trip. And it will show up. Um, and it will show up on the map. Um, the app will aggregate that trip with other passengers who are going to a similar location. Um, and it would dispatch a different bus. Will this presentation be available after the fact? I can certainly make it available. Sure. I can post it on the GMT website. Great. Thank you. Sure. So. There is a, a there's a project from the market. The project is called in transit where there's a, like a rotating carousel of updates. And I'll make sure to post it there for folks. Jamie question on the hospital Hill, So, when that goes into the micro transit, will you have to schedule both the drop off on the pickup separately, or how's that going to work? those trips together. Thank you. But one of the things is we'll be talking with GMT about this, but hopefully there will be a for those who don't have a smartphone, a pad up at the hospital that you could call because if you're like waiting for a long time for the doctor appointment, it goes longer than you want, you'd be able to request the ride from the hospital directly. Great. Okay, so not hearing any other questions. Folks have my contact information down, put the contact information for sustainable Montpelier Coalition, and we are available to answer any questions after the fact. My contact information is also in the presentation that I'll be posting on the website. If you're not familiar with the GMT website, it's ridegmt.com. And with that, I thank everybody for coming to the public meeting. And thank you. Sure. Thank you. I hope you all have a nice evening. Thanks too.