Last summer, Park City Transit launched its newest bus route, the 20 Tan.
The route serves the Park Meadows and Royal Street neighborhoods and connects them to Park City resorts, Main Street and other key spots in town. Over about 40 minutes or so, the bus moves between the Park City Municipal Athletic & Recreation Center and Silver Lake.
And since its summer debut, the route has had high ridership, with 921 riders in the last week of 2024.
Tim Sanderson, transportation director for Park City, said that’s better than he would have expected out of a newer and primarily residential route.
A lot of coordinated decision making goes into that success — much of it occurring long before anyone ever sets foot on the bus itself.
So, what makes a successful bus route? It starts with a need.
When the city decided to stop using High Valley Transit’s microtransit services, it took those savings and put the money toward other transit needs, such as leasing buses, bus operator housing, a van pool pilot program, its new Transit App and increased service from Richardson Flat.
Among those was the creation of the 20 Tan to address the gap in service for the Park Meadows area, which microtransit had previously addressed.
To start, Park City Transit staff members specializing in service planning build out an initial draft route and schedule. It’s their job to be aware of transit-industry practices and standards, such as distances between stops.
Next, the department’s Route Planning Committee takes a look. It comprises people in the transportation department such as bus operators, supervisors and planning professionals, and they discuss and offer their own input.
In the case of the 20 Tan, which was meant to fill a gap in a particular neighborhood, it wasn’t too difficult to choose the routing, according to Sanderson.
“There’s only a few major streets. You don’t want to run down a complete residential street, generally speaking,” Sanderson said. “You want to try to stick to the feeder routes going in and out.”
Still, the department must consider factors like density, where transit service already exists and previous ridership.
With its finished draft, the department looked for community feedback, particularly from people in the Park Meadows and Royal Street neighborhoods where the route would serve, and asked what their needs were and how they would plan to use the bus.
“We’re not necessarily asking them to tell us what the routing is, although they’re never afraid to,” he said with a laugh. “We just want to understand what the usage pattern is, and then we make adjustments based upon that.”
The final adjustment comes from Park City Council, as well as a final public comment period, during which the department did make some last-minute considerations, Sanderson said. They ultimately didn’t run the route down Silver Cloud Drive, for instance, because there just wasn’t much demand for it.
The route launched on July 1 and continued into winter service on Dec. 8. The city’s transit department has been collecting data on its performance since and will continue to make changes to the route at certain intervals, such as before and after the winter-service season, as well as after the route’s first full year, when the department can make changes based on metrics from each season.
“What worked, what didn’t work, what are we hearing from the public?” Sanderson wondered. “Are we able to keep it on time? Do we get overloaded?”
That data gets stronger over time. Plus, making adjustments too often could mean the public might not have an accurate bus schedule. Even though the Transit App has the most up-to-date information, some people don’t use it, or they use it so frequently they don’t feel the need to check the schedule each and every time.
“They may only ride it once every two weeks, and, (say) for the last six months, you’ve caught the bus at the same time every two weeks — you’re not going to check the timetable every time. You’re just going to walk out because that’s fast, and so (changing the route) can be disruptive. We try to limit those to things we really need,” he said.
Another long-term consideration is bus stops, which Sanderson said is one of the toughest decisions for a transit department “because everybody wants a bus stop within half a block of their household,” he said, but nobody wants it in their front yard.
Ultimately Park City Transit decided to run the 20 Tan as a flag-down route, meaning anyone can wave the bus down anywhere on its route to be picked up, similar to the Main Street trolley. It’s taken some getting used to from riders and bus operators, Sanderson said, but the method has been successful and makes the route flexible.
In fact, they may consider fixed bus stops if the route continues meeting high performance metrics.
Sanderson said there are two big metrics for measuring the route’s success. First is ridership, which is the amount of people who get on the bus over a certain time period.
“What we’ve been seeing over the summer, we saw usage probably around 30 passengers a day,” Sanderson said, “We’re in the 60s over the holidays. That’s surprising for a route that’s primarily in a residential area.”
The other metric is on-time performance, the bus’s ability to stay on schedule. That one’s tricky, Sanderson said, because every time you pick up a passenger, the bus slows down, but if you build too much time into the schedule for stops, then the bus is early, and that’s actually worse.
“If the bus is late, at least you catch it,” he said. “Whereas if the bus is early, you miss it, so we always try to err on the side of making it late rather than early because it’s better customer service that way.”
To collect ongoing feedback, Park City Transit has QR codes on every bus with a link to a survey, and they also attend community events. Users of the new Transit App also provide data.
“Believe me, being the transportation director, it’s amazing in this place how quickly everybody learns who you are. And I can assure you that nobody’s shy providing their opinions here,” Sanderson joked.
That’s how a new bus route gets made: lots of feedback leading to continual refinement of a service that’s always trying to be on top of the public’s needs.
“We have to continue to adapt all the time,” Sanderson said, “because traffic changes, people’s work life changes, people’s recreation habits change, people move. We constantly have to be changing.”
To see current bus routes, visit parkcity.org/departments/transit-bus/routes-schedules. Contact Park City Transit at (435) 615-5301.