Starting July 15, Bloomington Transit (BT) plans to start offering a new zone-based on-demand service that is meant to help connect riders to the fixed-route bus system, or even provide the whole trip.
The program is branded as BLink—which is pronounced “blink” not “bee-link.” The pronunciation squares up with the marketing slogan: BLink and you’ll be there!
Presenting the planned BLink service program on Tuesday night at the regular meeting of the BT board was Shelley Strimaitis, who is BT’s planning and special projects manager.
Using the BLink app, or by making a phone call, from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, passengers will be able to ask for a ride between any of three zones inside the city of Bloomington—North, East, and Downtown. Passengers will also be able to book zone-to-zone rides up to 24 hours in advance. The fare for the new service is $2. The regular fixed route fare is $1.
The service is not door-to-door, but rather “corner to corner” with riders picked up and dropped off at designated locations. Those pickup locations are the dots indicated on the zone maps.
The BLink program will provide a single point-of-entry for the new micro-transit service as well as two other, existing services offered by BT—BT Late Nite and BTAccess.
BT Late Nite is an on-demand service that BT offers through Uber and Lyft, which runs from 9 p.m. to 11:59 p.m. Monday through Friday. BTAccess is BT’s ADA paratransit service.
Also on Tuesday, Strimaitis briefed the board on the regular fixed route ridership figures. The monthly numbers for April continue an uninterrupted trend starting in April 2021—which was the one-year anniversary of the first month that was fully impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Each month since April 2021, the monthly year-over-year ridership numbers have shown an increase.
For April 2024, BT delivered 265,328 rides compared to 229,627 in April 2023, which is a 15-percent increase.
Strimaitis described to the board how BLink will use the current BTAccess vehicles and drivers to serve both paratransit and microtransit customers. That “commingling” approach is supposed to maximize the use of vehicles and improve operational efficiency, compared to current BTAccess levels.
BT’s goal is to increase efficiency from 2.5 rides per hour to 3.2 rides within six months, Strimaitis said.
On Wednesday, BT board president James McLary noted that was a significant increase—about 30 percent. Strimaitis said that it was an aggressive, but realistic goal, based on her conversations with BT’s consultants.
The increased efficiency is expected to come from BT’s new ride scheduling software, made by RideCo. The new software re-optimizes every 30 seconds, looking for ways to combine rides, Strimaitis said.
BT general manager John Connell added that some improved efficiency for staff time is expected from the availability of an app to request a ride, in addition to making phone calls. Currently, all BTAcess rides are requested by phone, Connell said, and if a portion of them can be requested through the app, that will mean increased productivity for office staff.
Strimaitis called the planned July 15 rollout “phase one.” “There’s so much more that we can do in the future,” Strimaitis said. She added that she is excited about the integration of BT’s new fare collection system into the BLink program.
This is very cool! Good job Bloomington!
It is very cool. But only north and east?? What’s the explanation for the inequity in that?
As usual, the city only caters to the College. Nothing west of I-69.. really.
Barely any of Bloomington city is on the west of I-69, and Bloomington Transit is a city entity. If the area to the west of I-69 is annexed it should definitely be expanded.