With a large number of customers using its public transportation system, the Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada (RTC) is responding by increasing weekday service to a Saturday schedule, while also pursuing additional ways to protect riders during the pandemic.

As well as continuing with its ongoing cleaning and safety measures, the RTC is incorporating additional technologies and debuting a new online dashboard feature that will provide information on how the pandemic is affecting the RTC’s transit service.

Effective July 20, the RTC will transition to a Saturday schedule on weekdays and Saturdays. The system is currently operating on a Sunday schedule because of a severe drop in ridership since mid-March. RTC transit planners have seen an increase in ridership demand recently. The schedule change will add more frequent service to many routes and enhance reliability.

The RTC has implemented numerous precautions over the past several months from its 14-Point Safety Plan, such as disinfecting vehicles nightly, requiring face coverings, and more. The 14-Point Safety Plan details the extensive actions the agency is currently implementing or is planning to implement in the future.

The RTC is exploring additional measures to keep riders safe, including:

• Air ion cleaners to kill germs and viruses in the air while RTC vehicles are on the road.

• Live, up-to-the-minute passenger counts so customers can review a vehicle’s current ridership data and make a personal decision about boarding or waiting for another vehicle.

• Sanitation information displayed on each vehicle to inform riders of when the vehicle was last sanitized.

• Micro-bacterial shields applied to seats and high-touch surfaces of each vehicle purchased moving forward.

These additional safety measures are still in the planning phase, but the RTC plans to implement most of these technologies by the end of 2020.

To be transparent about how the pandemic is affecting RTC’s transit service, the agency has also created an online data dashboard comprised of ridership numbers, vehicle on-time performance data, vehicle capacity updates, and more information. The feature provides a comparison of current data to that before the pandemic. The information will be updated regularly as new information is available.