By: Ryan Duey
During the Clay County Task Force’s annual meeting on November 14th, much was discussed about Clay County General Public Transportation (CCGPT) as it continues to grow into a highly respected public transportation service throughout the nation.
CCGPT recently completed a Pilot program and implemented a Ride Sheet software program. CCGPT is the only public transportation service in America to use this new technology. This software has greatly helped with dispatching, auditing, and more. This implementation helped CCGPT win the 2024 KPTA Innovation Award.
Don Wright, Operations Manager, said the department has grown to nine drivers and six vehicles, expanding its weekday public transportation service to Wakefield. Wright said that the employees of CCGPT have a lot of pride and work hard to provide this service to the County. Wright detailed CCGPT’s mission.
“Our mission is really we’re committed to customer service, giving the possible highest quality ride that we can on any given day. I know some days we have seen things with snow and rough weather, it’s not a great ride, but you know sunny days, we want to make them as perfect as we can. And then we want to continue to grow within North Central Kansas and get our agency to provide you with even better service to the Clay County community.”
Wright said Clay County Medical Center (CCMC) and the City of Clay Center have come on board to help grow the service with the addition of a van and support of Operation Safe Ride. Wright looks forward to partnering more with CCMC as 30% of the rides come from the hospital.
Wright detailed some other future goals of CCGPT, which includes the permanent issuance of Operation Safe Ride: the weekend Anti DUI Program.
“We’re looking to add GPS in our vans, and new smartphones for our drivers. So, we put technology in their hand and now then they can also text us instead of having to call back to the driver for dispatching, and they’re GPS capable. And then we also want to add a pay-by-card option. So, we’re looking at trying to figure out how to get the Square in there. So now all riders have to do is swipe their card, pay for their ride, and off they go. You know, alleviate customers having to carry cash, and I think it’ll make it a lot more user-friendly.”
“Mike Wilson is going to come up on board and he’s going to help me establish a website, and so that would be our next big goal. Hopefully in the future, as we get better at this, we’ll be able to book our rides off of that, which will also help the community.”
As part of the Clay County Task Force, CCGPT relies on donations and grants to keep providing this important service to the County. Residents can schedule a ride Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Saturday in Clay Center from 7:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., or a Safe Ride on Friday and Saturday evenings from 7:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. Call CCGPT to schedule a ride.
