A DART pilot program that’s been running in Georgetown and Millsboro is coming to Newark.
DART Connect is a rider request mini-bus service with no fixed stops, and it will replace Newark’s Unicity service, which is a free fixed route service that circles the city in a loop.
Rides requested need to be in the city, and initially will be available Monday-to-Friday from 6 am to 8 pm, so no late night rides.
The fare is the same as regular fixed route buses, and riders will be able to use daily, weekly, and monthly passes for the service.
Delaware Transit Corporation CEO John Sisson explains how DART Connect works.
"Like Uber or Lyft for public transit. It's an on-demand transit service that through an app or phone you call up and say I want to go from point a to point b within a service area. It's not that I can go from Dover to Wilmington, but so we right now we run it in the Georgetown- Millsboro area. We are going to run it in Newark. So it's almost the city limits of Newark to actually a little expanded beyond that, but it has a limit and a boundary," said Sisson.
Sisson notes the goal of DART Connect is to reach out to areas it’s hard to run a fixed-route bus, or the area doesn’t have the pedestrian network to get to fixed-route buses.
"You will call up, and we'll have at least initially a couple buses running at once. We might add more over time. And say I want to go from point a to point b, and typically in 15 to 20 minutes we'll come get you. Now that ride might be shared with others right so it's not an exclusive ride," said Sisson.
The service is slated to begin in Newark this August
