First step is approval of the June 9th.

I'm to approve.

Oh second.

All of those is significant by saying I assign the chair.

Okay.

So we are going to just plow in with Matthew Rich.

Approval.

Transit Master Service Agreements for transportation.

Good morning, Mayor.

Good morning, everybody.

Good morning.

I am pleased to bring to you today a proposal to engage in a one-year contract with a company called Transit.

They are the folks that developed a way finding transit very intuitively simple for the transit passengers not only to look up trips, but then to have reminders on the bus as to when their stop is coming up, how they can uh transfer.

They can uh figure out how to walk the distance or bike the distance, including utilizing our people trails here in the community.

Uh so it's a it's a pretty exciting technology that uh we're currently using today, but this service agreement gets us some an additional level of services with them that includes um higher um content for the passengers at no expense to them.

If a person goes online today and starts asking, hey, where is the bus today?

It asks them to sign up for a paid version.

With us as an AS City uh engaging in this agreement, that feature will go away and will reduce the confusion for the passengers as well.

So, how many people can use the app before we have to pay more?

Um unlimited.

Okay.

So there is no maximum amount that can be used.

And um this is a feature uh that gets us another tier of information as well.

This agency is very good about not selling the or advertising individual and uh passengers data, but they will give us access not only to passenger levels and utilization of the app, uh, but then with this agreement, we'll also find out where the passenger started their trip before they got under the bus, where what bus they got on and where they went to, and then where they got off and went to after they got um off the bus.

Sounds a little big brotherish.

Yeah, but that's screening back there.

Yeah.

But will give us the ability to modify and adjust our routes and uh which say here this is where the where the population, the aggregate number of humans are coming from in traveling too, that'll make our service even uh more tailored to their needs.

I'd happy to answer questions about it.

It's really cool.

Sure, it sounds great and everything, but is is the ultimate goal to um increase ridership?

Is that I mean what what methods are you trying to strive towards?

Um I see the issues, but I don't know how used it is.

So we provided in 2025 over 240,000 trips to our community members, which was a six, seven percent increase over the year before.

Um when I engaged in the route study, um the uh consultant expert that we use from RLS, they said, you know, Matt, be careful with you tying your success to route number of trips given solely, because as you expand your footprint of your service, you will serve different people that you served before, and that change may cause you to dip down a little bit in your service.

Um, but we'd like to continue to use the technology, the CAD ADVL technology on the bus, the technology from the way finding transit app by which to continue to modify and adjust our routes so that we can continue to uh attract more passengers and and create a bigger footprint of where public transit is available in our community.

So for today, uh as of April the 3rd, we started going up to Taylorsville and down to Wellsboro.

Um so we're now going to a density of employers and some retail uh that is giving us a different footprint than we had before.

Um so it's kind of a mix of both.

So there's a couple different ones.

We really truly do want to continue to um increase our ridership because that's a metric, but having that bigger footprint of where we're providing services is also very important.

I'd also say you also are going to provide more efficiency to your riders.

Uh a better understanding and maybe a little uh uh ease of ridership.

So one of the one of the things I realized when I was fortunate enough to to get this job is there's a high barrier for a new person who wants to use our public transit service to figure out how to get from one place to another.

Either you have to um look at a map and like intently study it and figure out how to make it work, or you have to call to the depot and get someone to answer the questions or a driver to answer the questions.

Um and the thing about this transit app is that it intuitively will say, here's where you are, you put in where you want to go to, and it'll tell you how far you have to walk.

It'll tell you what time the bus comes, it'll tell you how far you have to walk to get to your location.

So just like if you're going to a train in Chicago, it's the same thing.

It's it's it's a wayfinding service that is used internationally.

So uh you can go to Paris and use transit.

You can go to Chicago and use transit.

Um I discovered the transit app through one of the conferences that I attended when I went out to Utah for Transit Academy.

That was one of the things that I one of the gems I picked up on by going to that service.

So is it in use right now?

It is.

Okay, but it's at a lower level.

So this will enhance this will enhance it.

So today you can find out when the bus is going to arrive and how to get from one place to another, but you don't get the services of saying your stop is coming up in two stops.

Um you don't get the real-time tracking of other people using the app saying yes, that bus is running six minutes late, or it's right on time, because when there's a person on the bus using the app, that information goes out real time uh to the rest of the passengers saying when's that bus gonna arrive?

So it gets us to a whole new level.