Tri Delta offers new curb-to-curb pilot shuttle service

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If you live in a neighborhood near the Antioch or Pittsburg BART station, you can now hail a customized bus ride to a limited number of stops using Tri Delta Transit’s new Tri MyRide service.

Eastern Contra Costa County Transit Authority’s new on-demand shuttle service, which launched Monday, will operate as a six-month pilot program, running weekdays from 5 a.m. to 6 p.m.

“This is like bus meets ride-hailing service kind of mushed up into one with all of the benefits of a large transit agency that has a lot of experience and history like Tri Delta Transit,” Tri Delta Transit marketing director Maria Korbay said. “So, it’s really a simple service.”

The service is the latest in a string of Bay Area transportation agencies to try out new ways to serve the suburbs through smaller 12-seat buses on demand.

Similar to Uber and Lyft, the Tri MyRide service uses a smartphone app for riders to schedule customized curb-to-curb trips. The rides can initiate anywhere in the Hillcrest/Antioch BART or San Marco/Pittsburg Bay Point BART service areas to go to the nearest BART station or to one of several designated shopping centers.

Under the new service, customers must first choose either the Pittsburg or Antioch or Pittsburg/Bay Point service area. The service area in Antioch extends from Deer Valley on the west to Lone Tree Way south to Highway 4 to the east and north. The San Marco/Pittsburg Bay Point BART area extends from Bailey Road on the east, to Tampico Drive on the west and Highway 4 on the north.

“The reason we chose these particular areas is No. 1 we wanted them small; we wanted to really optimize the service,” Korbay said. “We didn’t want to make it such a big area that it would take forever to get from one end of the area to the other.”

Some neighborhoods, especially in the San Marco area, have many cul-du-sacs, and no way for big buses to service them, so the BART stations end up filled up with cars, she said.

“We’re ending up with a lot of congestion in the BART stations with nowhere to park, and that causes an issue,” Korbay added.

At $2 a ride, the service is about a third the cost of traditional ride-hailing services, and accepts all types of fare transit passes, except Clipper cards. In addition, the buses have bicycle racks and are wheelchair-accessible.

The app, called Microtranist by TransLoc, is connected to software that allows the bus drivers to shuttle passengers efficiently, Korbay said. Customers within the service area must first download the app to their smartphone to request a ride. They then will be notified of an estimated pickup time, be able to track their ride in real time and be alerted when the shuttle has arrived and reaches its destination.

“By partnering with technology companies, Tri Delta Transit is meeting the evolving needs of passengers in our community,” Chief Executive Officer Jeanne Krieg said.

The new microtransit services — the first offered in East Contra Costa — are intended to complement existing public transportation services. By providing flexible, on-demand transportation services, transit agencies are bringing improved mobility and greater accessibility to the communities they serve, Korbay said.

Antioch resident Lyn Ramseier of Antioch said she would consider taking such a shuttle if it were convenient.

“It’s coming to your home, you don’t have to stand on the street, waiting for someone to pick you up,” she said. “… It sounds like a valuable service for the elderly or people who don’t have cars.”

Ramseier also said she would use it to take to BART for leisure trips when time was not a factor.

Tri-Delta’s marketing director, however, noted that one of the advantages of the new service is riders can use the app to track where a shuttle bus is to estimate when it will arrive.

“The cool thing is you can actually watch and manage it…. You can track my vehicle (shuttle bus) that is coming,” she said.

In 2017 AC Transit launched a similar service out of Newark, Union City, Castro Valley and Fremont. Called FLEX service it blends on-demand rides with traditional bus routes and allows passengers to book rides in advance to pick up shuttles at the nearest bus stop.

Krieg said what’s different about Tri Delta Transit’s new service is that it does not replace routes, but rather is an addition to the regular buses and paratransit already offered.

“We (Tri Delta Transit) started in 1977 and this is about the wildest thing we’ve ever done,” Krieg said. “But, the world is changing, people are changing, their demands are changing in terms of how they get where and when, and standing on the corner waiting for a bus to come isn’t the way people want to move anymore, so we are excited about this six-month trial.”

Krieg said the transit company is taking suggestions on other neighborhoods that might be served by such a system, which could expand depending on how the pilot program goes.

To learn more about Tri MyRide, visit TriDeltaTransit.com.

Staff writer Erin Baldassari contributed to this report.