The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
“While we didn’t hit every single target, we came super close”
By Kendra Walker
With the new FirstTracks on-demand service in north Mt. Crested Butte continuing this summer, the Mountain Express is evaluating the pilot program thus far and determining possible next steps for continued service.
During the Mt. Crested Butte town council meeting on July 2, Mountain Express managing director Jeremy Herzog shared data and initial takeaways on the FirstTracks service from this past winter season.
The FirstTracks program, which rolled out at the beginning of the 2023/24 winter season, was created to serve north Mt. Crested Butte areas that didn’t have bus shuttle service and to replace the Columbine/Snodgrass and Summer Condo bus routes. Through the FirstTracks smartphone app or a phone call, anyone in the service area can request a ride from one of the FirstTracks vans. The service is intended to increase public transit ridership, improve coverage and frequency of free public transportation in north Mt. Crested Butte, provide a high-quality customer experience and reduce community-based CO2 emissions.
Winter takeaways
Herzog shared that FirstTracks saw 49,214 riders over the winter season, up 132% from the previous Columbine and Snodgrass bus routes in 2023. Herzog said that they came pretty close to hitting their initial goal of tripling ridership, with the service multiplying ridership by 2.4 times from the old bus routes. “While we didn’t hit every single target, we came super close.”
Herzog said that 40% of FirstTracks riders this past winter didn’t have access to a bus route. “That was a huge win,” he said. “It truly created 100% coverage in north Mt. Crested Butte,” he said.
Mountain Express had the goal to reduce the previous 30-60-minute bus frequencies, and 93.5% of wait times were under 15 minutes. The average wait time this past winter was 7 minutes.
“What’s troubling about our results is the 3.2% over 20 minutes,” said Herzog. He explained that the peak times were typically from 3-5 p.m. when people are leaving the mountain or heading to dinner, on Saturdays and holiday weekends. “We struggled at peak times to keep up with that 15-minute commitment. We’re talking about how we might adjust the capacity at certain times of the day to reduce those wait times.”
Another goal was to bring the cost per rider of $9.18 down closer to other Mt. Crested Butte bus routes, and Herzog said FirstTracks achieved a cost of $7.82 per rider. That compares to the average cost per rider on the Mountain Express winter town shuttle of $2.51 per passenger and the Crystal/Castle route of $5.44.
Herzog said Mountain Express also hoped to reduce community-based greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and FirstTracks saved 10,659 kgCO2 of emissions compared to the old bus route.
Additionally, in an effort to decrease the amount of vehicle trips, 36% of the rides were shared rides. “That was one of the pieces of feedback we got early on, that if a van is just picking up one person it’s really only replacing a personal vehicle with a public transportation vehicle,” he said. “So now we are trying to group rides together.”
Town manager Carlos Velado noted from his experience that the app didn’t always utilize the shared ride aspect. “Oftentimes two different folks from Town Hall or the Base Area had ordered two separate rides around the same time. But the app didn’t make the connection, and two vehicles showed up at a time when it was ripe for ride sharing,” he said.
Herzog said they could look into adjusting the app’s algorithm. “What I understand is there are two ways shared rides happen: based on the volume of people demanding rides and the number of available vans. The algorithm is currently set up to focus on wait times, but maybe we could tweak that to be more focused on the shared ride.”
Herzog said that Mountain Express values public input, and riders can rate their experience. Herzog was pleased with the service’s average rating of 4.96 out of 5. “We review every rating under a 5,” he said, “and we’ve used those as learning opportunities.”
Residents, riders and property managers in north Mt. Crested Butte also had the opportunity to participate in surveys about the program once the season finished. “We heard loud and clear there wasn’t enough public conversation and public outreach this time last year,” said Herzog. Mountain Express received roughly 160 responses from their surveys. “We’re seeing ridership from the whole community. People aren’t just using it for one specific purpose, and a lot of people are using it three, five, seven times a week.” Herzog said that 85% of survey responders said they used FirstTracks more than they used the bus.
“We heard a lot of anecdotal feedback that the service was much more convenient and frequent,” said Herzog. “I think our job in public transit is to get as many people around as we can as cost effectively as we can, and I think we were successful. At the end of day I think a year later we can say we did introduce change, we accomplished something from it and we learned some lessons along the way.”
Councilmember Alec Lindeman asked if there were any metrics or feedback regarding minors using the service.
“We don’t have any tracked metrics of age levels of people using the system,” said Herzog. However, per their policy all ages are allowed to ride. FirstTracks did provide free car seats and there was a phone at the Mt. CB Visitors Center available for people without phones to use to schedule a ride. “We also found that parents were booking rides for their kids when they had a predictable schedule, such as ski school.”
Summer service
The FirstTracks pilot program continues this summer, and Herzog shared initial June data with the Crested Butte News and the Mountain Express board this week. FirstTracks had 1,423 riders in June, with 58% of the riders in the old bus service zone and 42% in the new service zone that didn’t previously have bus service. The average rating was 4.99 out of 5, and 100% of the wait times have been under 15 minutes.
“June was off to a slow start so far, with only 25% more ridership than the bus route last year. The first 3 weeks of the winter got off to a slow start too, but then ridership really took off … so we’re definitely keeping a close eye and we’ll see how July does,” Herzog told the News. “We’ve put out reminders on Facebook about how FirstTracks can get you to Music on the Mountain, the Snodgrass trailhead or even the new pickleball courts to see if that helps increase adoption of the service.”
Herzog noted to the council the importance of separating the winter data from the summer data. “I think one tactic the board has to consider is evaluating if both winter and summer make sense, or just one or the other. We struggle to get ridership in the summer. In summer, people are going to places to hike, bike, SUP, places that the bus doesn’t go. So we’ll have to see what our summer results look like.”
Next steps for moving forward
Herzog said Mountain Express is now looking at ways to improve the FirstTracks service, such as how to prevent long wait times, add more vehicles during busy periods and determine staffing levels for slower versus busy days.
“Is it sustainable moving forward with Mountain Express’s current operating budget?” asked councilmember Steve Morris.
“From a financial perspective, the cost of running the FirstTracks program was roughly $700,000. The old bus routes cost $400,000, so it was an additional spend,” said Herzog. “We are able to afford that service because we saw incredible sales tax over the last couple years. In terms of future sustainability, that’s a good question that I don’t know if we have the answer to yet.”
Herzog explained that Mountain Express has experienced increased expenses and has had to make some hard budget decisions over the last year. “I’m expecting our board to be pretty critical of this program and make sure it fits within the content of operations,” he said.
“Can any of those costs to FirstTracks be attributed to startup costs?” asked Velado. “Could some costs conceivably go down?”
“We didn’t really have startup costs because the provider (Downtowner) provided the vehicles,” said Herzog. But I think we have some opportunities to cost-optimize the service. I think we’ve got some ways to trim some margins around the edges to put out better service for a similar price point.”
“It seems like FirstTracks is the easiest entry point to electrify transportation in the valley,” said Morris. “It would be nice to see if that can be a continued focus as we look at pricing and internalizing the program.”
Herzog agreed, but noted that there are currently no all-electric all-wheel-drive vehicles.
Herzog said that if the Mountain Express board decides to move forward with the service, there is potential to go after grant funding for vehicles and bring the service in-house to eventually decrease costs. Herzog also hopes to eventually combine the service with the Late Night Taxi to improve that program and possibly optimize costs.
“I would love to see a really strong focus on figuring out how to integrate this into the Late Night Taxi,” said Morris.
Once the Mountain Express board reviews the summer ridership results, the plan is to formulate three potential operating scenarios for the 2024/25 operating season and come back to the council in August to discuss. As of now, Herzog said possible scenarios could look like the following: (1) Continue winter service, continue summer service, integrate with the Late Night Taxi; (2) Continue winter service, lose summer service, integrate with the Late Night Taxi; (3) Continue winter service, continue summer service, keep the Late Night Taxi as it currently runs.
The board will then make a decision at its September meeting. These meetings are all public meetings and Herzog said they welcome public feedback at any of these. “We encourage everyone to attend any of the upcoming public meetings to express their opinion on the value of this innovative service, or send an email to feedback@mtnexp.org.”
