The Commonwealth Office of Transit Authority will launch a pilot project on Rota and Tinian to potentially provide demand-responsive shared rides.

“It's a reservation based, demand responsive shared ride program that we have. This is similar to the one we have here on Saipan. And so this has been in existence for over ten years now. So we look to hopefully having the same for Rota in Tinian,” said Special Assistant for Public Transportation, Alfreda. Maratita

The project is funded by a Department of Interior grant for one year and the initial assessment will focus on recruiting transit operators and evaluating the vans on the island.

“So back FY21, COTA was able to hand over ADA accessible vans for each island. So there will not be a need for additional vehicles unless we need to through the assessment that we plan on conducting,” said Maratita. 

The assessment starts in October and they plan to engage community stakeholders to inform their decisions. The services have been successful on Saipan.

“We do have, a lot of riders for our demand response service. For August, we actually reached a goal, more than last month for July, we reached 1,483 riders. And then for our fixed route service, we went up again in ridership. We serve 7,811 riders for the month of August,” saud COTA Mobility Coordinator Tiana Sablan. 

“As we're expanding our services we are looking for transport operators that share our sense of service. You know, it's a unique, it's a unique position to be providing transportation to our public,” said Ernie Bell, Operations and Maintenance Coordinator at COTA.

COTA said that transportation services are much needed on Rota and Tinian.

“And so this assessment is very critical, very critical. So we're able to, you know, understand, whether this could be sustainable for future expansion long term. That's the goal,” said Maratita.