After a bumpy rollout back in April, the Suffolk County on-demand bus network in East Hampton appears to be running smoothly as it nears the end of its first summer in operation.
The on-demand bus program is a county initiative that allows riders to summon a bus — like an Uber — in a designated area via a cellphone app. The cost per trip is $2.25 for adults, $1.25 for students with an ID.
The East Hampton expansion continues an earlier pilot program that began with a route serving Southampton and Sag Harbor.
The East Hampton route is larger, encompassing all of Springs, Amagansett, Napeague, and Montauk. A rider can enter their location — their home, for instance — into the app and a small bus will pick them up and transport them to any location within the encompassed area. An algorithm coordinates the drivers, telling them where to pick up riders in the area.
Suffolk County Legislator Ann Welker, who represents the district that includes East Hampton and Southampton, discussed the program last week during a bus ride. Despite her approval of the new system, the expansion plans predate her election to the Legislature.
The East Hampton route, she said, predominantly serves the working community. The bus is busiest at 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., as people travel to their jobs.
“That’s different, for the most part, from the Southampton route. These are people that depend on this. They’re people that live in Springs who have to get to East Hampton Village or live in Springs and have to get to Montauk,” Ms. Welker said.
When the program expanded to East Hampton in late April, there were only two buses. “There was so much demand and not enough buses,” Ms. Welker said. The on-demand buses are short, typically containing four seats, allowing space for around eight people total.
Throughout May, the program experienced “bumps in the road,” and Ms. Welker attended a meeting intended to address the issues. Around Memorial Day, the Suffolk County Legislature added more buses to the East Hampton route. Now, there are six in the fleet. Suffolk County contracts with the Hampton Jitney for buses and staff.
The program has, however, encountered several issues, particularly earlier in the rollout, which Ms. Welker openly discussed. One of the main issues had to do with the technology, as the algorithm required lots of “fine-tuning.”
“The apps work off an algorithm,” Ms. Welker said. “They’re constantly tweaking things with the app, as they look at it on a weekly basis, because at first — when there were just the two buses — they didn’t understand the ridership.”
Early on, the program did not effectively nor efficiently coordinate the riders into sensible groups based on their pickup location and destination. For instance, Ms. Welker said, if there were four separate riders who wished to travel from Montauk to Springs at the same time, the algorithm would place them on different buses, perhaps making a driver travel from Amagansett to pick just one person up.
When a potential rider requests a pickup, they might occasionally receive a popup message reading, “We’re currently experiencing very high demand, and all our seats are currently filled,” instructing the rider to try again in several minutes. The increased number of buses in the fleet has helped address the issues with the volume of riders, but the error message persists.
Another issue — which is still unresolved — is the apparent gap in service for workers in Bridgehampton who relied on the fixed route buses. Now, there is no bus service for Bridgehampton, as the on-demand bus expansion replaced the 10B and 10C fixed routes, which served that area.
With no direct bus route, workers at locations such as King Kullen, Hampton Library, and Citarella must use the on-demand bus to get to the East Hampton Long Island Railroad station and take the train the rest of the way, Ms. Welker said.
Despite this, the local bus system has substantially increased its ridership this year, according to Ms. Welker. Each week in July on-demand bus ridership increased. Compared to the previous fixed route buses, ridership is up 42 percent from last year. In July, the on-demand buses made 2,984 trips.
Jordan Daniel, a rider from East Hampton, said that he thinks people are generally skeptical of new programs. “Even when I told people about it, they seemed to not believe me that it was a thing,” he said.
Mr. Daniel typically uses the service to meet friends, get to the train station, and go “out and about.” Over all, his experience has been largely positive. The only problem, Mr. Daniel said, is the occasional long wait time.
“I was stunned that it came to existence because this is like the area of ‘no’ where everything is so difficult to implement,” Mr. Daniel said over the phone. Since he began riding, he’s noticed the increase in the number of riders.
Anthony Martinez started driving for the on-demand system in July. During the rest of the year, he is a school bus driver in the Longwood School District. Since he began with the county bus, he said he sees the same people each day, as they travel to and from work.
“Most people I get are people who work around here,” Mr. Martinez said. As for issues with the system, “They complain all the time about the application,” he said, referring to the cellphone app used to summon buses.
“We still have work to do to get the word out about this new system,” Ms. Welker said. In the future, she hopes to see the system continue to expand, particularly to accommodate the Bridgehampton workers, adding that “the county wants more of these” and she sees the two established routes as pilot programs.
