HRT outlines plan to shrink low‑ridership routes, expand high‑frequency backbone and microtransit pilots

Hampton Roads Transit officials told the Newport News City Council on Oct. 14 they are proposing a System Optimization Plan (SOP) that would reduce low‑ridership local bus service and reinvest saved operator hours and local funding into higher‑demand, higher‑frequency regional backbone routes and microtransit zones.

The presentation, led by Ray Amorusso, HRT chief planning and development officer, said the agency is chronically short of bus operators and is missing service: “In the month of June, as an example, for the entire month, we missed about 1,200 trips because of lack of bus operators.” Amorusso said the SOP aims to match the published schedule to available operators and improve reliability so the system “will be there when we say we will be there.”

HRT framed the SOP as a way to move resources away from hourly routes with very low boardings toward routes with higher demand and toward microtransit, a demand‑responsive van service that HRT is piloting in Newport News. Amorusso described the existing…