The longer hours fulfill one of the goals Ride Calhoun Executive Director Mary Avis described during an Aug. 3 presentation to the Albion City Council.

“Hopefully by later this year, we’ll be going until midnight,” Avis told council members at the time.

Ride Calhoun Mobility Manager Mary Fortney also told council that new technology was coming to replace the BCGo app.

“You’ll see a brand new app,” Fortney said, describing plans for an app similar to Uber in which riders could enter their ride and destination.

Ride Calhoun announced this week that the new app, called Rides on Demand, will become available Oct. 12. It can be used to schedule on-demand curb-to-curb rides or ADA paratransit rides.

Current BCGo app users will need to register for the new app. Riders can download and register for Rides on Demand or call Ride Calhoun dispatch at 269-966-3474, option 1. Users of the app should have location services turned on so it recognizes the Ride Calhoun service area.

RC FLEX is an on-demand shared-ride service operating within Albion and connecting riders with the other participating cities of Marshall, Battle Creek and Springfield. Fortney told council that riders can call dispatch or use the app to arrange a trip and may share a vehicle with other passengers along the way.

The service area is limited to participating communities. Avis explained during the August presentation that Calhoun County townships and villages had opted out of the transportation authority, so RC FLEX generally cannot take passengers to destinations in those nonparticipating jurisdictions.

Avis told council that use of the service in Albion had been increasing “pretty steadily week after week.” She said riders included seniors and students traveling for education, as well as people making recurring trips that appeared to be for employment.

At the August meeting, council members also asked whether riders still needed to schedule trips well in advance. Avis said that was still sometimes the case as Ride Calhoun worked to expand its fleet. The agency said this week that it continues to hire drivers and expects fixed-route hours to expand further as it hires and trains more drivers.

Ride Calhoun is also hiring for several other positions, including second-shift supervisor, utility worker, scheduler and CDL operators.