Caleb Grant, executive director of Rural Community Transportation (RCT), testified to the committee about growing demand for rural transit, how microtransit pilots have expanded service areas, and operational challenges including driver retention and increased service costs.

Grant told lawmakers RCT provides roughly 300,000 trips a year and that about 60% of the services it delivers are under Medicaid contracts. He described the agency’s shift from some fixed-route services to microtransit in several communities — including Morrisville and Newport — and said microtransit’s app-based, AI dispatching can expand access and lower cost per ride while serving more unique riders. Grant said Newport’s microtransit pilot grew quickly after launch; where a fixed route had served “40 to 60 individuals” a day, microtransit now serves many more riders and registers roughly 1,200 unique users in the service area since the July launch, according to his testimony.

Grant also described staffing and safety pressures. He said drivers face emotional and physical demands when transporting riders with complex health or behavioral needs, leading to burnout and turnover. He urged lawmakers to consider how land-use, housing and school decisions externalize costs onto regional transportation providers and asked the committee to include transportation consequences in related policy discussions.

On fleet electrification, Grant said RCT operates five plug-in hybrid vehicles and eight electric-transit vans and completed a feasibility study on electrifying its fleet; the study concluded RCT should not electrify the entire fleet immediately because the service area’s needs would require a larger e-vehicle count and charging infrastructure investments.

Committee members asked about microtransit costs, timeline and volunteer drivers. Grant said microtransit pilot areas now produce hundreds of trips per week and that microtransit can be scaled rapidly; he also said volunteers remain a critical resource (pre-COVID the volunteer pool was larger) and that volunteer mileage reimbursement and a strong local reputation help recruitment.

The committee thanked Grant and said it will continue to explore how public transit and school transportation might coordinate and how state supports could help rural providers.