MORGANTOWN – RideMon, the Mountain Line Transit Authority’s on-demand microtransit service, began on May 9, 2022 as a six-month pilot program.
The service provided 77 trips in its first month.
Today, passengers are ordering up some 600 rides monthly, and, on June 15, the service surpassed the 15,000-ride milestone.
Initially partnering with rideshare powerhouse Uber, the program was initiated to help increase coverage on the transit authority’s least serviced, least accessible, and most expensive routes – Route 14 (Mt. Heights) and Route 15 (Grafton Road).
Just like Uber and other ridesharing apps, customers can use their phones to request a ride, which costs the same 75 cents per passenger as catching a bus. Once a ride is ordered, a RideMon van typically arrives within 10 minutes ready to deliver passengers anywhere in the microtransit zone, including three Mountain Line connection points – Mountaineer Mall, Hornbeck Road Walmart, Sabraton Goodwill.
Within about four months of initiating the program, RideMon users began outnumbering bus riders in the service area. So much so that in December 2022, the transit authority voted to suspend bus service on the aforementioned routes. That change ultimately wouldn’t take effect until January 2024.
Uber ended its partnership with Mountain Line in June 2023, at which point the RideMon program was switched to on-demand transit software provider Spare, which it continues to use.
“In March 2025, microtransit ridership alone surpassed the previous top numbers for fixed routes, and in April 2026 it surpassed the previous peak for microtransit and fixed routes combined,” Mountain Line press release explained.
As of July 15, the service has provided 15,605 rides.
While it was initially believed Mountain Line could transition other service areas over to a microtransit model, Mountain Line General Manager Kimberly Fragola said, “there are not currently any specific new microtransit zones being developed, but we are always monitoring our services and performance, and we are open to exploring what will work best for individual areas.”
Riders can request a RideMon trip through the Spare app available in the Apple Store or Google Play Store. For more information on all Mountain Line services, visit busride.org.
