Key West Transit service will be rolling out a new, more efficient service sometime at the beginning of next year, according to city officials.
This would replace the existing north and south lines in the evenings with what Key West Transit calls an on-demand transit service, somewhat similar to Uber, that would facilitate ride-sharing.
It will be quite different from what the city has offered before in terms of public transportation, and the city hopes it will attract more riders. Passengers would be able to schedule a ride, and be picked up and dropped off at designated stops on the line they choose.
Key West Director of Transportation Rob Delostrinos said the two routes running in the city right now, the north and the south lines, will become on-demand in the early evenings.
“The Lower Keys Shuttle, the route that we have from Marathon to Key West and back, that’s going to remain the same. It’s a fixed route, it’s really very popular and so that’s going to remain. While the Duval Loop, for the majority of the day, that’s going to stay the same; however, beginning at six o’clock at night we’re going to turn those buses into an on-demand type service,” said Delostrinos.
“Now it’s not like Uber, where it’s door-to-door, or even Monroe County Transit, where it’s door-to-door, it will actually be more like a stop-to-stop. If somebody had requested a ride through either the app, the website or phoning in, it will tell them where the nearest stop is, if they don’t know. Then they just pick the destination,” said Delostrinos.
Despite an original planned rollout date of Dec. 20, Delostrinos said it is not clear yet how soon the new service will arrive but is planning for after the new year.
Delostrinos said they are still trying to get agreements in place and doing due diligence prior to the planned changes.
“Unfortunately the target date was Dec. 20, but because we have to make sure before entering into anything, that everything meets all the needs of the city, and protects the city and that type of thing. I think, unfortunately, we’re looking at January, kind of a new year-type rollout. We will also allow hailing a bus initially, the bus will stop to let someone on, just until people kind of get used to it,” said Delostrinos.
“It’s one of those newer types of systems, but again, these other ones will still be in place, and we think this is going to help out a bit,” he added. “Right at the beginning of COVID-19, there were four routes in the city, and although we covered them within a quarter-mile or so of stops, we wanted to be able to provide a bigger blanket of coverage, and ideas like this on-demand service would do that.”
As far as fares, that seems to be the biggest selling point. With Uber rides costing upwards of $20, a rider will pay the same fares already in place. For the city routes, the full fare will be $2.
The impetus for the decision is two-fold, according to Delostrinos. There is less money to work with due to an increase in costs for employee compensation, and the other issue is maximizing the drivers the department has available.
Delostrinos said the rollout will be publicized as soon as they lock down a new date but, for the interim, the current configuration will remain until at least sometime in January.
