I hopes of saving money, Dauphin County Commissioners are moving forward in revamping the Capital Area Transit System. According to a 2012 National Transit Database, CATS Annual operating cost was around $14 million. That’s more than $4 million higher than other transit operations in the five-county area.
PennDOT Deputy Secretary, Toby Fauver shared a phase of the transit consolidation study with Commissioners. (The last performance review was in 2007, under ACT 44.) Fauver says the current study will look at ways to provide the best service to people while saving administrative dollars. Options include consolidating CAT with Rabbit in York, Lebanon Transit and Shared Ride Services in Cumberland, Perry and Franklin counties.
Fauver says, “One’s actual formal consolidation, take the existing systems and create a new system and the existing systems would sort of go away administratively. The second option is to maintain the current systems and find ways for those systems to work together to save money.”
Commissioner, Jeff Haste says, “Either one would make it easier for the rider and also savings for the taxpayers, so it looks like it could be a win and it may be which is the most cost-effective.”
Fauver says the consolidation could save $3-$4 million. It’s money that would stay in the transit systems and could be put back into overall operations, including maintenance costs. PennDOT will study their proposal and report back to the commissioners in 6 months. Riders wouldn’t notice a change.
