PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — SEPTA’s on-demand overnight shuttle service will come to a screeching halt next month because of weak demand.
Owl Link service ends on Feb. 12. It launched last May, linking SEPTA bus and Regional Rail stops with warehouse businesses such as Amazon in Lower Bucks County.
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Riders use the Owl Link mobile app to book a shared minibus trip, similar to arranging an Uber Pool ride. It connects late-night workers in Lower Bucks County with bus routes 14, 56 and 66, as well as the Bristol, Croydon and Cornwells Heights Regional Rail stations.
It was designed to provide “last-mile” service for overnight workers who needed to get from fixed SEPTA routes to their job sites in Bristol or Bensalem. However, ridership peaked at only 10 to 12 people a night, according to SEPTA spokesperson Andrew Busch.
“The initial projections that we had going into the pilot was that we would have approximately 44 people riding each night,” he said. “We came well below projections — less than a third.”
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He said the app also proved to be problematic.
“Many customers were having trouble using the mobile app,” Busch said. “We found that having a call center was critical to this type of operation.”
Busch said any on-demand SEPTA service in the future will likely include more collaboration and cost-sharing with employers.
“We do believe that micro-transit has a future at SEPTA. However, launching it in the middle of what we now are all calling the Great Resignation was not the best timing of it,” he said. “We do think that there’s a place for this type of micro-transit in the system. It just will probably take on a different shape when we move forward.”
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Shortly after the pilot was launched, Transport Workers Union Local 234 filed an unfair labor practice complaint, claiming SEPTA violated state law when it hired a private company to operate the Owl Link shuttles without first bargaining with the union.
The complaint was dismissed by the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board, but Busch said it was not a factor in ending the pilot program. He assured that any future micro-transit service would use TWU workers.
