Rural Community Transportation warns of rising demand, driver strain as NEK grows

Cale Grant, executive director of Rural Community Transportation (RCT), told the Senate Transportation Committee during NEK Advocacy Day that demand for public rides in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom has surged and is straining the agency’s vehicle, driver and budget capacity.

"We're not just moving people from A to B, we're connecting people to opportunities, to health, to community," Grant said, summarizing RCT’s mission and the services it provides across Orleans, Essex, Caledonia and Lamoille counties.

Grant told committee members that RCT receives roughly 1,000 daily requests for on-demand trips and is typically able to accommodate about 800. He said Medicaid-funded trips make up the bulk of on-demand requests and are governed by a 48-hour notice rule: "We are contractually obligated to provide 98% of all trips requested with a 48 hour notice," Grant said, characterizing that requirement as a scheduling and optimization constraint for dispatchers using a mix of 60 volunteers and 35 vehicles.

The testimony highlighted two competing pressures: heavy, regulated demand from Medicaid clients and rapidly growing consumer interest in microtransit. Grant described microtransit pilots in Morrisville and the Newport area that allow riders to request service through an app with as little as five minutes’ notice. In Newport, he said, fixed-route ridership of about 60 people expanded to service roughly 1,200 individuals when microtransit was added.

Those gains, Grant said, have not come with proportional increases in funding or drivers. He described the emotional and physical strain on drivers who regularly manage riders with complex medical and behavioral-health needs and warned of burnout if support and training are not increased.

Grant also urged policymakers to factor transportation costs into broader planning decisions. He gave a local example: a proposed affordable housing development in Greensboro, he said, would require an estimated additional $40,000 a year in transportation costs to serve residents under current demand assumptions, a cost RCT would absorb without extra revenue from Medicaid or other sources.

Committee members asked for data and reporting; Grant said VTrans (the Vermont Agency of Transportation) is compiling a microtransit pilot report and offered to provide regional figures and a localized study of transitions between service types.

The hearing also touched on labor and service continuity concerns tied to route changes. A committee member raised testimony heard earlier in the session about Green Mountain Transit relinquishing routes and noted that some Green Mountain employees represented by the Teamsters could be affected; committee members indicated they will follow up with RCT on that issue.

Several committee members and the speaker discussed an employer-funded transportation demand management (TDM) approach. One committee member said they planned to reintroduce a bill previously proposed years ago that would require or incentivize large employers to support TDM strategies; Grant said he would work with legislators on those conversations.

Grant closed by asking legislators to consider how housing location, education planning and other policy choices shift costs onto rural transit providers and to include transportation considerations when crafting those policies.

The committee did not take formal action during the session; members requested additional data from RCT and VTrans and signaled interest in continued discussion on employer-supported TDM and the labor impacts of route changes.