You may have heard the buzz around town, there is a new transit technology about to drop in our city. I am actually not talking about the streetcar, but something called “Demand Response.” Also known as “Microtransit” or “On-Demand,” this type of transit, similar to the streetcar, is something that has actually been around for a long time. It’s just that this is the first time that it will be implemented by Omaha Metro Transit and packaged together with an efficient and reliable reservation and routing system.
Before continuing on, let’s dig into what this transit service is exactly. Demand-response transit is a flexible, on-demand transportation service that provides “curb-to-curb” service based on passenger requests. While it sounds like a taxi service based on this description, what makes it transit is the ability to group similar rides to make the service more efficient. I like to tell people that it is similar to using an elevator at an office building downtown. Sometimes, you might be on the elevator by yourself, but you usually ride it with other people for a few floors while it takes people to different destinations. Smarter elevators will group people together to go to and from similar floors, like demand-response transit.
There are a few ways that demand-response transit groups similar rides. One is using a software program to help book passenger reservations and schedule trips. Another is simpler: having “pulse” times at a transfer center or major hub (like a rail or BRT station) where passengers can simply board the bus/van and tell the driver where they want to go. Another option is for the service to offer something like a “flex route,” shown in the Taos, N.M. photo above, where the vehicle will follow a route similar to a regular bus through a higher-ridership area, but still be able to deviate from this route, which could also be at specific times of the day.
The key here is that demand-response is very flexible and fits the ridership patterns that develop in specific communities or areas of town. Most demand-response service is set up to operate in a specific zone so that the vehicles stay within a certain area (the larger the zone, the more difficult it becomes to provide reliable transit). And most demand-response zones are set up in lighter-density areas where there is still a need for transit, but a fixed, regular bus route would not work as well because there would not be enough ridership to support that service. There could also be infrastructure limitations to having fixed route bus service, such as lack of sidewalks or irregular development patterns, where demand-response transit is more agile and can work around these restrictions. Demand-response transit also does well at supporting fixed routes and other high-ridership transit services, by offering connections for the “first or last mile” to help passengers who want to connect to the rest of the transit system.
Now that we have a good description of what demand-response transit is, let us look into what Metro is proposing. Microtransit was called out in the MetroNEXT plan as a pilot project to try it out and see how effective the service is. More information was detailed in an appendix and the microtransit concept showed up in a few scenarios that were presented as options, such as “Scenario C,” which focused on expanding service to new areas. In this scenario, microtransit zones were shown in west Omaha and in the Florence area.
Map of “Scenario C” in MetroNEXT
Last fall, Metro released an RFP for a private operator to initiate the microtransit pilot program. In January, there were four open houses held for people to get a better idea of demand-response transit and the service that Metro is planning to implement, of which 181 people attended in person or online. Based on this information, Metro is working to set up three different demand-response zones throughout the City of Omaha in the north, south, and west areas to test out this new technology type. The zones, fare, vehicles, and other items are still being worked out, although the latest is to start this in the summer of 2025.
Map of Omaha Proposed Demand-Response Zones
How would this work? Let’s say that I have a meeting downtown during the day and want to take transit there (which I usually do, since I can use my time on the bus doing other things and save money by not paying for parking). Instead of driving to the Westroads Transit Center to catch ORBT, I would book a ride on the demand-response service since my office is in the proposed west Omaha zone. The vehicle would pick me up somewhere near my office, get me to the Westroads ORBT stop, then I could take that the rest of the way into downtown. I would also have a ride booked for the return, based on when I think I would be back at Westroads after my meeting. I could also use the service without connecting to another transit route, say if I am meeting someone for lunch or coffee in the same zone and I would book a similar reservation.
Demand-response service can also be used as a way to grow ridership demand in suburban areas, something that happened in some zones that were operated by the Regional Transportation District (RTD) in Denver during my time there. Over time, a few RTD demand-response zones transitioned to having a “flex route,” which eventually had higher ridership than the demand-response vehicle could support and they were turned into a regular bus route. The same could happen in parts of Omaha and may be a more efficient way to implement additional bus service. As transit is introduced in new areas by way of demand-response, and there are a lot of suburban Omaha areas without transit, the service can transition into a fixed route based on where the ridership demand is at and where passengers are traveling to and from.
This could also be an effective form of transit to use in other suburbs outside of Omaha, like in Council Bluffs or Bellevue. As other suburban communities weigh the pros and cons of officially joining the new Regional Metropolitan Transit Authority of Omaha, this could be a useful transit technology to initiate an area as transit service is gradually increased based on passenger demand.
What happens next? River North Transit (a subsidiary of Via Transportation) will be paid $7 million to operate the service for two years. Later costs are to be negotiated. The initial contract allows for up to five years. Service could start this summer.
Eric Miller is a senior transit planner at Felsburg, Holt & Ullevig (FHU), a transportation engineering and planning company that was founded 40 years ago and has been in Omaha since 2004. Eric has a 20-year career in the transit industry that includes work in both the private and public sector and work on planning and implementing bus and rail projects for transit agencies all across the country.