The Martin County Metropolitan Planning Organization recently released their draft of the Transit Development Plan (TDP) for Community Coach. The major goals are admirable: 1.1 Develop a public transportation system that meets the needs of the general public with specific focus on the County’s transit dependent population; and 1.2 Ensure compliance with the transportation requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act and all other pertinent federal, state and local regulations. Other specific goals include extended hours of operation, added services, improving performance, employee training and safety. Beyond these are many other goals regarding the search for additional funding and how to project a favorable image of the system. Unfortunately, there are no specific goals on improving the efficiency and reducing the obscene cost of the system to the public.

Community Coach’s current major areas of service are: demand response, fixed route service and contracted/special event service. Demand response service provides

dedicated transportation in an advanced-reservation service. In 2005 some 26 vehicles operated in a 12 hour, 7am to 7pm, weekday service, moved an average of 422 riders per day. Using Community Coach’s figures of $42.18 per hour of operation this amounts to a direct cost of over $13,100 per day to move those 422 riders, or more than $31.00 per rider. Assuming the same usage (and usage is slightly down through the first seven months of this fiscal year) that will increase in 2006 to an estimated $35+ per rider.

Fixed route service provides an Indian town shuttle five days per week, and a Stuart shuttle two days per week. The Indiantown Shuttle was used by an average of 56 passengers per day and the Stuart shuttle by some 24 individuals per day. While total costs, or even total operating costs, are not provided, the following estimates are deduced using system wide operational cost figures. The Indiantown shuttle is ostensibly the most efficient of the taxpayer-supported portions of the system with a 2004-05 operational cost of $20.62 per passenger. This may be an overly generous estimate (and the actual cost much higher) since the non-revenue miles for that route may be larger than the system wide figures. The Stuart shuttle is providing service at an average cost of over $24.00 per passenger to move them “mainly between the condominiums along East Ocean Blvd. to shopping sites along US-1”.

The final area of service is the contracted/special event. This is basically the rental of the Community Coach vehicles and drivers to support events such as the Stuart Airshow and Martin County Fair. The cost for this service was recently raised to $75.00 per hour. With a 2004-05 average of 24 passengers per hour and extrapolating the revenue miles at the 2005 rate of $2.92 per mile, this service seems to be at least covering most of their direct operating costs. This is acknowledged in the TDP as being in direct competition with private services available in the area. However, this is not a fair competition as the private operators have to cover their investment costs and overhead as well as direct cost of operations.

The draft TDP indicates an overall average cost of Community Coach operations at just over $16.00 per passenger transported. While this figure may be technically accurate, it is certainly not the true cost. Our figures for the various services above include all miles driven, not just revenue miles with passengers on board. It also does not include all of the costs of providing the current level of service. The TDP states goals of increasing service in all areas of operation over the next few years. This is in the face of level or declining ridership and drastic increases in fuel costs that will certainly raise per passenger operating costs. The anticipated addition of more vehicles, a new headquarters facility at an estimated $1.6million, and more staff can only exacerbate the total cost.

In summary, we endorse the effort to provide these services, but believe that there must be a better way. The fixed route and contracted/special event services could easily be contracted with private industry. While certain on-demand services might be more difficult for contractors, we believe that the options should be explored.