Gainesville announces new Regional Transit System (RTS) contract with University of Florida

The City of Gainesville and the University of Florida (UF) have announced a new bus service contract that will continue the university’s prepaid bus fare program through mid-2027. This comes as Regional Transit System (RTS) ridership grew by 7.3% in Fiscal Year 2024, increasing from 5.1 million to more than 5.5 million passenger trips across the Gainesville Urbanized Area.

The new RTS-UF contract includes important gains on both sides. As a response to the rising cost of operating the buses that serve the university community, UF will increase payments from $84 per bus hour to $88.35. In return, RTS will work with UF to collect additional ridership data, with passenger-counting equipment installed on all buses to verify the number of university riders as future route changes are considered.

“The equipment to count passengers will be installed by this summer,” said City of Gainesville Chief Operating Officer Andrew Persons. “From that point forward, the city will report to the university the number of students, staff and faculty who ride the buses each month.”

The new contract is the result of a negotiation process aimed at improving route efficiency for students while maintaining a public transit system that works for all riders. University and city leaders believe they have achieved that goal, pointing to the smooth introduction of four route changes launched the first week of January.

“This contract represents a big step forward in terms of efficiency and cost-effectiveness for both the city and the university, which is good news for our students,” said Brandi Renton, UF’s interim vice president for business affairs. “We look forward to continuing the productive and collaborative conversation with the city as we work to further fine-tune our RTS partnership.”

The agreement with UF is similar to existing arrangements with Santa Fe College and Alachua County. The partnerships help the city attract state and federal grants for transit-related projects, such as the $26.4 million Federal Transit Administration (FTA) grant that will allow Gainesville to purchase full-sized hybrid electric buses and build the city’s first solar-generating facility at the RTS administration complex.

“This is a time of transition and growth for the city and for UF,” said Gainesville City Manager Cynthia W. Curry. “As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of RTS this year, we do so with the knowledge that our university partners continue to recognize public transit as an essential service to the community.”

At the Jan. 16 regular meeting, the Gainesville City Commission approved the terms for the next two and a half years and, in a separate vote, renewed the existing contract extension through the end of February to allow time for the new details to be finalized.