Denton County Transportation Authority on Thursday celebrated GoZone, an on-demand rideshare service launched 18 months ago, for completing one million rides.
DCTA and Via, the TransitTech provider for GoZone, held a ceremonial one-millionth ride and honored “superstar” GoZone drivers at the Downtown Denton Transit Center on Thursday morning.
“The one-millionth completed ride for GoZone is a truly remarkable achievement, and it represents an incredible amount of work our teams have accomplished in only 18 months,” said Paul A. Cristina, Chief Executive Officer of DCTA. “The strong success of GoZone has placed DCTA among the top 25 transit agencies in the United States supplying demand-response microtransit service, meaning DCTA is truly a national leader in this arena.”
GoZone launched in September 2021 with a fleet of dedicated minivans providing safe, economical and efficient transportation options to residents in Denton, Lewisville and Highland Village through a mobile app-based service. More than 640,000 rides were completed in the first year, according to DCTA, and demand has steadily increased as GoZone set a record with more than 71,000 rides completed in one month (January 2023), making it one of the most popular on-demand public transit services in the nation.
“Even more gratifying for us is that GoZone is providing outstanding service to our customers, with more than 98-percent of riders giving us a five-star rating in the app,” said Cristina. “That really shows how much GoZone drivers care about providing good service, and how much our customers appreciate it.”
GoZone has also proven to be a common way to connect to other modes of transit. According to a survey from spring 2022, more than a third of GoZone riders report using the service to connect with DCTA’s other public transit modes, such as buses and trains.
GoZone launched with the goal of expanding the community’s access to equitable public transportation in the most cost-effective way possible, by deploying easy-to-use technology. GoZone has achieved notable data points that indicate success toward that goal, according to DCTA, including:
- 80% of GoZone trips are to-and-from essential destinations such as grocery stores, healthcare, schools, workplaces, social services or other transit hubs
- 42%of GoZone customers report their annual income as less than $25,000
- 44% of GoZone customers identify as people of color
- 71% of GoZone customers do not own a personal car
GoZone has also made consistent improvements in operational quality in recent months, with great gains in the rate of rides completed, in numbers of people moved per hour, and in on-time performance, according to Javier Trilla, DCTA Assistant Vice President for IT and Innovation.
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