Since the start of COVID, many people who used to work downtown now work from home some or all of the time, and the Flyer service is not being used as much to ferry employees from parking garages to their workplaces.
Still, the Flyer remains one of the Regional Transit Authority’s top routes, and its ridership in the fourth quarter of 2022 was higher than all but one other previous quarter since the service launched in 2018.
“While it is unfortunate that the sponsors ended the relationships, it was not unexpected with the changes to things since COVID,” said Bob Ruzinsky, CEO of the Greater Dayton RTA. “We truly appreciate both partners and their multi-year support that made this happen to begin with.”
The Flyer is a free bus service that travels between the heart of downtown and Brown Street by the University of Dayton campus.
The service has 25 stops and uses three buses. The Flyer arrives at stops on its route about every 10 minutes.
Starting on Jan. 8, the north loop of the Flyer service was eliminated, and the shuttle no longer travels to Monument Avenue.
The route now goes no farther than Third Street before turning around and heading south toward Brown Street and UD. The route has been shortened by about one mile to about 2.75 miles.
Since August, the Flyer had operated on Saturday mornings and Sundays, in line with RTA’s service expansions of its other routes. But Greater Dayton RTA has returned the Flyer to its former schedule, which means there’s no service on Sundays and the bus starts running at 4 p.m. on Saturdays.
Credit: RTA
Credit: RTA
Premier Health and CareSource had sponsored the Flyer since it launched in late 2018.
Premier and CareSource employees often used the Flyer to get from parking in the southern part of the Central Business District to their offices in the northern parts of downtown.
Also, employees often hopped on the bus to grab lunch in places that otherwise would take awhile to reach on foot, like the Oregon District and Brown Street.
CareSource contributed about $220,000 annually to the Flyer, while Premier pitched in about $110,000, RTA officials said.
Before the pandemic, more than 1,000 employees worked at the Premier Health Center at 110 N. Main St., and the Flyer helped them get around more quickly, including to Miami Valley Hospital, a Premier Health spokesman said.
But since the pandemic, most Premier Health support staff work remotely full-time or have a hybrid schedule, and the number of people using the Flyer to get to the Premier Health Center has declined significantly, the spokesperson said.
A CareSource spokesperson said the organization provided funding that helped bring the Flyer to life.
“Our initial investment and four years’ worth of funding was important to get the Flyer launched,” the CareSource spokesperson said. “We were happy to provide seed money to the Flyer.”
Nowadays, most of the Flyer’s ridership is people traveling between UD’s campus and the Dayton Arcade, Ruzinsky said.
UD is one of the arcade’s anchor tenants.
After declining during the pandemic, the Flyer’s ridership has now increased year-over-year for 17 consecutive months.
Ridership in September, October, November and December was up over the same months in 2019, before the COVID crisis began.
Though partnership funding is gone, Ruzinsky said the RTA has not seen a net increase in the cost of the service.
He said that’s because the service changes means the Flyer requires one less bus and several fewer drivers.
By the numbers
The free Flyer bus’ ridership is increasing
Number of riders, % change from 2019 (pre-COVID)
October: 48,755, 2%
November: 44,016, 16%
December: 36,559, 8%
SOURCE: Greater Dayton Regional Transit Authority
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