McLennan County rural transit board reports 58% ridership increase; TxDOT commuter pilot underperforming

At its Feb. 26 meeting, the McLennan County Rural Transit District Board heard an operations presentation from Serena, the system operations staffer, who said the district’s rural ridership rose 58% in the first quarter of the current fiscal year compared with the same period last year.

The increase, Serena said, reflects intensified community engagement and improved reporting from new software tools. "We're at a 58% increase for the first quarter of the fiscal year versus last quarter," Serena said. She cautioned that some commuter-route counts are recorded in a separate system, so staff are still reconciling totals by region.

Why it matters: The board is monitoring whether ridership gains are durable and how to allocate limited grant funding. Serena told directors that while most routes are showing strong growth, one TxDOT-funded pilot commuter route covering China Spring, McGregor and Mark has low ridership. "It's just we're not getting a return on that investment," Serena said. Staff plan to meet with TxDOT in the coming weeks to discuss whether to reallocate those service expansion funds or to revise the route.

Serena also described improvements in analytics, including heat maps that show pickups as far north as Meridian and past Temple, which staff hope to parse by ZIP code next reporting cycle. She reported 99 first-time riders during the quarter and about 304 active riders in the same period, and said passenger-feedback metrics show strong satisfaction among those who completed surveys. Key on-time performance metrics cited were roughly 89.31% for pickups and 91.45% for drop-offs; 94.61% of pickups occurred within 15 minutes of the scheduled time.

Board members raised outreach and service-design ideas to boost commuter use, such as targeted in-person demonstrations, working with local institutions to explain demand-response trips and adjusting return windows so riders are not required to spend lengthy hours away. Serena said the district can implement route modifications quickly if specific stop locations and needs are identified.

The board moved and approved acceptance of the operations report for the record. Staff will return with more granular, region-level ridership data once software parsing and ZIP-code disambiguation are resolved.