WILMINGTON — Delaware officials are revamping how the state bus routes are run, discontinuing some routes due to low ridership while relying on the “microtransit” model to still serve riders in rural areas.
Last November, DART began rolling out its “DART Reimagined” plan which reviewed ridership numbers on certain bus routes to assess where resources are best allocated. That resulted in adjustments to various routes in New Castle County with some rerouted altogether while others were added or even discontinued like Route 52 which connects the Wilmington Transit Center to Centerville.
As some of these routes are phased out, DART hopes to add more microtransit zones where riders can use a smartphone app to schedule a bus trip in real time in select zones. The program started in 2019 as DART Connect in two zones which included Georgetown and Millsboro, as well as Newark.
The goal under the DART Reimagined plan would be to add about nine micro routes throughout the state by 2030. That includes adding microtransit routes in North and South Dover, Smyrna, Harrington and Milford, and the Seaford area, among others. Passengers could then take a scheduled bus ride to anywhere within the zones and can be connected to other fixed routes as needed.
The fixed routes that were identified to be replaced by microtransit routes tended to be in lower density areas and had less than 10 passengers per trip. But since transit habits changed, largely due to the work-from-home model, DART First State Chief Custom Experience Officer Albert Loyola said the state still wants to make it possible for Delawareans to get where they need to without straining resources.
Roughly one-third of Delawareans are served by transit within a quarter of a mile of a bus route. DART’s goal is to reach half of the state’s population. With the changes in the routes, DART believes it can help an additional 463,500 low-income Delawareans access more jobs within an hour commute.
“The idea was to right-size our existing service to see how we can meet today’s demands. We hope that with these zones, people will have increased access and get where they need to go,” Loyola said. “For example, in Sussex County, there’s several towns that have long distances between them that don’t work well for fixed routes because of the time it takes to get from town to town. If you assign smaller zones, you may get more trips in a denser area and the area around it.”
The microtransit options offer more flexibility in which passengers can be dropped off and that’s seen more riders use it than those who may have used an Uber or Lyft in the past.
Outside the microtransit option, major employers also had a hand in DART’s strategic plan when it came to addressing fixed routes. For example, a Sunday service was added to Route 9 to serve employees getting to the Amazon Boxwood facility in Newport.
