Chatham Area Transit officials are preparing for an "aggressive" schedule of route revisions, system updates and other changes during the next year that are meant to make the system more sustainable long-term.

Senior Planner Grant Sparks told the agency's board of directors last week that CAT will be wasting no time in starting the effort. To get drivers trained, software updated and to gather input from the public, Sparks said transit system staff in the next month will be taking a deep dive into recommendations from a recently developed Origin and Destination study, which presented options for redrawing bus routes to best meet the demands of CAT's ridership.

It will be incumbent upon CAT to consider these recommendations with its own data before moving forward with presenting its cuts and changes to the public, Sparks said. Under consideration is the elimination of the lowest performing routes - the Airport Express, Route 11 to Candler and Route 20 to Skidaway and Coffee Bluff - along with more alterations to routes considered redundant.

He said CAT will be examining ways to create large "trunk corridors" to its busiest service areas - southside Savannah around the Oglethorpe Mall and downtown. Smaller corridors could then be drawn to branch to these larger service areas - potentially on Abercorn Street, Waters Avenue and Skidaway Road - and new concepts for connecting riders from the outlying areas to the south, west and east will also be on the table.

Assuming the work moves according to the schedule laid out at the CAT Board's meeting June 27, Sparks said, a draft service concept could be ready for introduction to the public by November and final changes could be implemented by this time next year.

It's an ambitious undertaking, said CAT CEO and Executive Director Curtis Koleber, one that is typically taken on over the course of a couple of years.

"This is the most aggressive schedule for something like this ever," he said.

Countywide expansion?

CAT officials have said in the past these changes are some of the best ways to improve the transit system's ridership and bottom line after years of declining numbers. But another, previously unpopular alternative has also been gaining steam in local board rooms recently.

Outgoing CAT Board Member Helen Stone said last week the Chatham County Commission has discussed using its powers to expand the system's service district across the county - including into municipalities that don't currently pay for the service. There is a lot of potential on the west side of Chatham County, said CAT Board Member Jay Jones, where growth in the commercial sector is creating a demand for workers from other areas of Chatham and its neighboring counties.

"(Commission Chairman Al Scott) has discussed this on numerous occasions," Stone said. "I think he's already looking into it. I think the train of thought here is if CAT is countywide, it will generate more revenue."

In the past, west Chatham residents have roundly rejected any attempts to bring bus service there, despite evidence that a westward expansion could be feasible. But reached by phone Tuesday, Scott said an expansion will have to be considered.

"At some point, we have to look at expanding the CAT district," Scott said. "Even if we made CAT, or authorized them to expand countywide, that's not something that would happen overnight. That would take a couple of years. … (And) you would simply be authorizing them to go forth in areas that make sense."

New app launch

Meanwhile, as the effort to revamp and potentially expand the CAT service district continues, transit officials are working to put in place a new amenity that will better connect the system with the vast majority of its customer base.

Brandon Koupal, the head of CAT's information technology department, told the board of directors the long-awaited launch of a new cell phone application that provides real-time updates of bus locations and other system information is just a few months out.

The CAT Board voted unanimously at its June 27 meeting to renew its contract with AT&T, which comes with additional bandwidth to support the community's use of the app. Once that's in place, Koupal said it will just be a matter of time before the platform is in place and reaching more than two-thirds of CAT's ridership.

In other business, the CAT Board last week:

• Voted to renew its fleet, property and worker's compensation insurance.

• Approved the discontinuation of the 170X University Express, a four-day per week express service provided at no cost to Savannah State University students. Koleber said CAT is working with the university and the city of Savannah to improve lighting at some of the other routes in the area that can continue to provide that service to students.

• Recognized outgoing CAT Board members Stone and James Holmes, whose terms ended on June 30. The Chatham County Commission on June 23 appointed Commissioners Chester Ellis and Tabitha Odell to succeed them on the board and reappointed Jones, who previously served the unexpired term of retired board member Priscilla Thomas.