As senior centers begin to reopen and demand for public transportation continues to grow, we are working to increase trip availability. Social distancing policies have ended, and our vehicles are back to full capacity; however, our fleet is still heavily reduced. We're currently running only about twenty vehicles each day, whereas in 2019, we were running 40+ vehicles daily.
Management is doing everything they can to hire and train qualified drivers as quickly as possible; but we're experiencing the same difficulties that every other business has been experiencing in regard to the labor shortage, a challenge which has been exacerbated by the fact that our federal funding has been reduced each of the past three years.
Please continue to be patient with us as we work to hire qualified drivers and put more vehicles on the road. Trip availability should steadily improve over the course of the next several months. Before COVID-19, 2020 was on track to be our most productive year yet, with more trips performed than ever before. Our mission has not changed, and it is still our goal to increase the quantity and quality of paratransit service provided in the Greater Birmingham area. As the communities we serve work toward establishing a new normal, ClasTran will be there to meet the need.
