HURON –– In an effort to better serve all riders within Huron and outside of the city, People’s Transit plans to change to a new routing software beginning Thursday, Feb. 6.

While the change may seem quick for some, this has been in the work for some time.

“Tiffany (Demarce, lead dispatch with People’s Transit) and I have been looking at software options for four or five years now,” Gayle Kludt, Executive Director of People’s Transit, said. “We went through online demonstrations with different vendors and met multiple times. So this isn’t a ‘fly-by-night’ decision that we made.”

The current software in use by People’s Transit was purchased in 2006, Kludt relayed.

“Here we are in 2025 finally changing something after 19 years,” Kludt laughed. “You can about imagine the advances in technology and programming that new software will provide for us.”

One of the big advances for drivers and dispatch alike will be an algorithm that deciphers the next pickup for a bus based on a host of factors, rather than having a route pre-laid out before a driver takes off.

“The software is passively organizing routes in the background so drivers are more efficient, so they’re not driving out of the way for one pickup,” Kludt explained. “That will also make things so much more efficient for riders as well and potentially get riders to their destination quicker.”

Eventually, there will be an app to utilize to both schedule rides and keep track of where a scheduled ride is within the route.

The software will be tailored specifically for People’s Transit. However, it will take over a lot of the duties that current staff do.

“I’m not going to have the control over the routes like I did,” Demarce explained. “That said, it will be more efficient for the drivers and for the riders than I could ever dream of doing myself.”

From pairing similar passengers to improving ride times, the ride experience will be improved.

“That the big thing for this is that it will make everything so much more efficient,” Kludt stated.