PROJECTS
Electric Bus
BSOOB Transit will be taking delivery of two of the first four electric buses in the state of Maine in early 2021. The buses will be manufactured by Proterra, a national leader in the industry. With the buses will come charging infrastructure for our garage depot and an on route Pantograph overhead charging station which will be installed at Saco Transportation Center.
The funding has been secured through a Federal Transit Administration Lo/No (low emissions/no emissions) grant as well as match dollars from Maine Department of Transportation.
Electronic Fare Collection
BSOOB Transit will adopt electronic fare collection in early 2020. Electronic readers will be installed in all revenue generating vehicles that will allow for a smart phone application and stored value cards to be used collect fares.
Smart phone applications can be downloaded and funded by riders who choose to use the technology in this way. Stored value cards, branded in the Portland area as DiriGo cards, will be available for riders to load as well at Saco Transportation Center and other select outlets locally. The stored value cards are not disposable and should be kept so value can be used.
A regional fare policy will allow riders to pay electronically in the same way and the same fares on BSOOB Transit, South Portland Bus Service and Greater Portland Metro. All similar services will be priced in the same way.
A rewards program, technically named “fare capping”, will be able to be accessed by all riders equally regardless of economic status. Frequent riders will have their fares capped after their third boarding of any day and 30th boarding of any month. After these thresholds are met, all subsequent boardings for that day or month would be free.
Automated Vehicle Locator
BSOOB Transit will be implementing and automated vehicle locator (AVL) web application in early 2020. This application, hosted by UniteGPS, will allow riders to discern the location of their bus by looking at their smartphone or referencing screens located in the Saco Transportation Center.
The goal of implementing this technology is the arm our riders with a way to find this information on their own without needing the assistance of customer service representatives.
Onboard Wi-Fi
In early 2020, all BSOOB Transit passengers will be able to access free onboard Wi-Fi during their trip.
Organizational Rebranding
A rebranding effort is being completed in late 2019 and will launch in early 2020. Please keep an eye out for our new colors and logo more and more in our service area. Our old branding, based around Shuttlebus-Zoom, will begin to sunset with the former visual prompts or “genie” being retired. The “genie” will still be used as part of the BSOOB Transit Angel Project.