Denton County Transportation Authority (DCTA) reports that its GoZone on-demand rideshare service delivered more than 75,000 trips in January, making it one of the busiest microtransit services of its kind in the nation. The service averages over 70,000 riders per month. GoZone is also exceeding many other service goals, showing that DCTA continues to make positive impacts on the communities it serves.
“The community adoption of GoZone has exceeded expectations, and GoZone is performing extremely well overall,” said Paul Cristina, CEO of DCTA. “The GoZone system is surpassing its benchmarks in safety performance, ridership, seat availability, and wait times for pickups as well as for customer service calls. GoZone has become a model success story for services of its kind anywhere in the country.”
GoZone operating partner Via Transportation reports that GoZone is outperforming similar services in its systems across the nation, including Arlington, Fort Worth, Miami and Seattle, and the service is bringing transportation options to many residents in Denton County who need them.
For example, 62% of GoZone riders earn less than $25,000 annually, and 83% of GoZone riders do not have access to a personal car, meaning the price and the efficiency of GoZone allows many more people affordable transportation to essential destinations such as work, school, medical offices or stores.
From a safety standpoint, GoZone is outperforming all expectations, delivering an incident rate of 0.26 incidents per 100,000 miles driven so far this year, well below the Federal Transit Authority (FTA) benchmark of 0.42, and well below other microtransit services of its kind.
“Safety is the most important thing we deliver, and we are very pleased with the safety performance of GoZone, A-train and all of our transit modes,” said Cristina. “And we continue to monitor and respond to safety concerns as they arise, so we are always making improvements such as identifying safer pick up and drop off locations for customers.”
Since launching in September of 2021, GoZone has now completed 1.8 million rides in Denton, Highland Village, and Lewisville, and over 98% of GoZone customers have given their ride a 5-star rating in the app.
The service offers riders a trip anywhere within those service areas for a base fare of $1.50.
The A-train commuter rail line also continues to attract a growing number of passengers. Following a significant drop due to the pandemic, A-train ridership rebounded in 2022 by more than doubling its passenger count. In FY 2023, A-train saw an increase of 22% and so far in 2024, the positive trends are continuing with A-train ridership up another 16% over last year.
“The A-train will grow in importance to our community as more and more people move to Denton County and highway construction on Interstate 35E impacts commuters in the coming years,” said Mr. Cristina. “A-train offers significant advantages to commuters who use I-35E, including saving money on gas, saving wear and tear on your car, and reducing your stress level getting home from work.”
DCTA is currently studying options to increase train speed, frequency of stops, and extending the A-train service to include downtown Carrollton.
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