The user data from the city of Sedona’s first month of microtransit service is now in, showing that while usage is gradually increasing, total trip numbers represent a fraction of Sedona’s vehicular travel.

The microtransit shuttles completed a total of 480 rides during the first five weekends of operation, a total of 21 service days, for an average of 22.9 rides per day. Rides per weekend were 65, 58, 96, 116 and 145, respectively, for the weekends beginning Aug. 29 and Sept. 5, 12, 19 and 26. Fifty-eight ride requests were canceled prior to a shuttle’s arrival. The system reported only three no-shows. Transit Administrator Robert Weber previously stated that he was projecting an average of 150 trip requests per day.

According to the city’s development impact fee update study recently presented to the City Council by TischlerBise, Sedona residents and visitors currently average 68,261 vehicle trips per day, split roughly equally between the two groups, putting the microtransit system’s share of Sedona travel so far at 0.03%.

The service carried a total of 825 passengers over the 21-day period, an average of 1.7 persons per ride. Passenger counts for each of the five weekends were 115, 80, 129, 209 and 292.

Weber later said at the Community Pulse meeting on the morning of Wednesday, Oct. 9, that the service was two riders short of its first 1,000 riders.

Weber estimated that the cost of one year of microtransit operations would be $1.1 million, or $21,154 per weekend, putting the average cost at $128.21 per rider for the first five weekends of operation.

Noon and 11 a.m. were the most popular times to request rides, with 61 and 67 requests, respectively, during the period, followed by 3 and 4 p.m. with 54 and 52 rides. Median wait time for the entire period was 6.7 minutes, while the averages for each weekend were 8.1, 6.7, 7.4, 7.5 and 3.6 minutes. Ninety percent of those requesting rides were picked up within 14.9 minutes. Forty-nine trips had a wait time longer than 15 minutes.

Fifty-four percent of rides were requested using the system’s smartphone apps, while 36% of requests were made by phone. Ten percent of rides originated with walk-up riders; although the shuttles do not pick up at addresses in Uptown, they do spend time idling in the Uptown parking lot.

The shuttles providing these rides traveled a total of 3,365 miles, or 590, 459, 659, 880 and 777 miles per weekend. Average mileage per trip was 9, 7.9, 6.9, 7.6 and 5.4 for each weekend, or 7 miles per trip for the five weekends as a whole.

The shuttles’ manufacturer projects an efficiency of 16 miles per gallon for the vehicles, on which basis the shuttles would have released just over two tons of additional CO2 during their first five weekends of operation.

The heat maps Weber provided indicated that the most popular pickup points so far have been Uptown [67], the Courtyard Marriott [43], Posse Grounds Park [40], Navajo Drive [37] and Tlaquepaque [35]. The most popular dropoff points have been Uptown [89], Posse Grounds [46], the Courtyard Marriott [36] and Bashas’ [33].