Some suburban cities frustrated with Dallas Area Rapid Transit are considering adopting a new method of transportation: microtransit.
Four cities — Irving, Farmers Branch, Highland Park and Plano — will hold elections this spring to possibly leave the DART over concerns about cost and what they say are inefficient services. In its place, some are already looking into city-run, on-demand services.
Irving will set aside money to implement microtransit if residents vote to leave DART in May, according to the city's website. And a microtransit company representative appeared during a Carrolton DART Committee meeting to pitch the service, though the city hasn't called a withdrawal election.
Plano will seek to adopt microtransit regardless of whether the city leaves DART or not, Amanda McNew, director of media relations, told KERA.
Plano is currently asking DART to end its standard bus service and allow them to pay less into the agency. That bus service would be replaced by microtransit as soon as March, but Plano still hasn't settled on a vendor or a deal with DART.
"We really need to make some changes to be able to create a door-to-door service through different types of vehicles that work for our community," Plano Mayor John Muns said at a Nov. 5 special called meeting. "And so we're looking for those changes to help our residents utilize a public transit system even that much more."
But what is microtransit? And how will it change public transportation in North Texas?
What it is
Microtransit allows people to schedule a ride in a van or small bus at a pickup location, usually at a cost of under $10. Think of a subsidized Uber or Lyft ride, but you will likely share the ride with other passengers.
Via, a microtransit technology company with a large presence in Texas, currently provides this service to Arlington, Denton County and Trinity Metro through multi-million dollar contracts. DART also has microtransit integrated into its service through GoLink, which contracts out to (companies).
The rides are limited to zones established by the local government. This means your options for traveling outside a county or city are often limited.
But when microtransit works, the convenience is hard to beat. A couple dollars and a few clicks is all it takes to have a van pick you up and take you to your destination.
A representative for Via told KERA their service is targeted toward helping people living in medium-density areas.
“Light rail is really effective at moving a lot of people in a cost effective way when you have the infrastructure and the funding and the land to put it in,” the spokesperson said. “The challenge is that in a lot of suburban environments ... you don't have the infrastructure and you frankly don't have the density of people.”
Issues of scale
The big issue facing microtransit is how much it can grow in ridership before it gets too expensive for the local government to afford: More riders require more vans and drivers.
The Via representative told KERA the company mitigates this by having larger vehicles pick up multiple people per trip – but there is a tipping point.
“The microtransit system may run out of capacity to share more rides,” the spokesperson said. “But in those cases, (...) the first thing that happens is that people may wait a little bit longer.”
Ultimately, Via said it’s up to the local government to decide how much more service they want.
“Do we want people to wait a little bit longer, or do we want to put more money into this because this program is successful?” the representative said.
The standard DART bus or train gets more affordable for the government as ridership increases, said Julene Paul, an assistant professor of city and regional planning at the University of Texas at Arlington. Since the cost of running a bus or train along a route is essentially the same whether it's full or empty, filling it up with more riders means more fare dollars at little additional cost to DART.
That's not the case with microtransit, Paul said.
“If you're offering microtransit, you're probably not moving toward wanting to increase a lot of ridership,” Paul said.
Via told KERA that while it varies per location, the service commonly sees around four to five passengers per hour. DART's GoLink microtransit saw 4.5 riders per hour in the third quarter of 2025, according to the latest available data on hourly ridership. Local bus routes had nearly 15 riders per hour during the same time period.
Microtransit's ability to scale up in ridership has put into question its ability to handle large events like the 2026 World Cup.
Alicia Winkelblech, Arlington's director of transportation, told KERA in October Via meets the average needs of people looking for a ride, but "specifically moving large masses of people, that's not where microtransit excels because they get stuck in the traffic with everyone else.”
Dylan Duke is KERA's Fall news intern. Got a tip? Email Dylan Duke at dduke@kera.org.
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