Representatives from Escambia County Area Transit (ECAT) announced the start of the Comprehensive Operations Analysis (COA), a study of the routes, schedules and amenities that ECAT provides. Designed to evaluate the system’s existing operations, the COA will also consider priorities for expansion. Public input about ECAT will be gathered through a combination of community meetings and online survey responses, and this information will help shape any proposed or recommended changes.
ECAT is asking residents of Escambia County to take a brief online survey in order to gather information about how the system is currently utilized and how users and non-users alike would like to see it improved. The survey, available online at GoECAT.com/Survey until July 11, 2014, asks respondents 16 questions and takes fewer than five minutes to complete.
“I am excited to receive feedback from the community,†said Tonya Ellis, Director of Marketing and Community Relations for ECAT. “We are improving transit and connecting Escambia County, and this study is crucial for our continued growth and improvement.â€
The COA comes as a result of a 2011 Transit Development Plan that identified a variety of new service needs related to the county’s projected rapid growth. As ECAT does not have the financial resources to simply add new services, this COA will help determine how best to operate existing services more efficiently in order to provide more and better service within the system’s available budget.