New company awarded contract to operate OmniRide buses

Keolis Transit Services LLC has been awarded a five-year contract to operate and maintain its OmniRide bus service in Northern Virginia by the Potomac and Rappahannock
Transportation Commission (PRTC) Board of Commissioners.

Keolis will begin operating the OmniRide service on Nov. 1, 2020, and has already begun changeover activities to ensure a smooth transition that will be invisible to riders. The first year of the contract is worth $24,629,187 with a start-up cost of $740,523.

Keolis provides mobility services to millions of passengers in the United States. Keolis carries over 100 million passengers each year on local, commuter, paratransit, and commuter rail services in 12 cities. This includes the Virginia Railway Express (VRE) commuter rail service, which PRTC co-sponsors with the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission.

“This partnership with Keolis will help OmniRide move forward to evolve our current mobility options for the county as well as look for new opportunities to run safe, efficient and effective public transportation,” stated Prince William County Supervisor Margaret Angela Franklin in a press release. Franklin also serves as PRTC Chair. “We look forward to a successful partnership with Keolis.”

Out of three companies that submitted proposals, Keolis scored highest on the five evaluation criteria. In the competitive procurement process, Keolis impressed PRTC’s evaluation committee with its extensive knowledge of the region as the operator of VRE, its nationally and internationally renowned best practices with bus service, and the in-person interview, according to the press release.

“Those results assured the evaluation committee that Keolis was the right candidate to take over operations of OmniRide’s commuter, local, and paratransit service. They have the maintenance of our assets, as well as the safety and health of operators and passengers, at the forefront of their business model ,” stated Perrin Palistrant, Director of Planning and Operations for OmniRide in a press release. “Additionally, the cost model submitted provides PRTC flexibilities to adjust service levels in the future based on service needs, and allows for more control of costs and more predictable budgeting.”

In June 2019 the commission authorized OmniRide to conduct a new procurement for operations and maintenance contractor services, which currently are performed by First Transit Inc. The new procurement was not due to performance issues with First Transit, but because the contract with First Transit was expiring and OmniRide is required to issue a new procurement.

Also, OmniRide wants to further evolve the operations and maintenance contract due to major changes in service design, new technologies, and the planned opening later this year of a new OmniRide maintenance facility near I-66 and the Prince William Parkway.

First Transit currently runs operations for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority (WMATA) and has done so since 2003.