For many Charlotte residents, a paratransit trip isn't something that can be rescheduled. It's the ride to a medical appointment, the commute to a job you can't be late to, a connection to a community that would otherwise be out of reach.

The Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS) serves a metro area of nearly 1.4 million people, and for a meaningful share of them, paratransit trips are exactly the kinds of trips they depend on. This month, the agency took a major step toward making those rides more reliable by launching its Specialized Transportation Services (STS) paratransit program on Spare.

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A program built on trust

STS has served Charlotte's riders with disabilities for years, operating as a cornerstone of CATS's commitment to equitable mobility. The decision to modernize its technology platform wasn't taken lightly. For a service where every missed trip has real human consequences, reliability isn't a feature, it's a requirement.

The transition to Spare involved careful, methodical preparation. Rider profiles and subscription trips were fully migrated from the previous system. A structured Train-the-Trainer program brought drivers up to speed on the new platform. 

Dispatchers, reservationists, and administrators completed in-person training sessions the week of launch. A live road test confirmed the system was ready before a single rider ever boarded, resulting in a launch that the CATS and Spare teams are already calling a success.

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2,000+ trips and counting

Within the first week of launching on Spare, CATS Paratransit completed over 2,000 trips. That matters because switching to a new platform doesn't pause the service. Riders still need their trips the next morning. Agencies still need drivers on the road and dispatchers managing the day.

A smooth transition in paratransit means something specific. Drivers felt confident in the new system from day one. By day two, STS achieved 98.75% on-time performance, reinforcing the reliability riders and staff depend on. Dispatchers could see the full picture and respond when things shifted. Riders got where they needed to go without knowing anything had changed behind the scenes. Two thousand trips in, that's exactly what happened.

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One platform, two services

The STS launch doesn't happen in isolation. CATS Micro, the agency's on-demand microtransit service covering Charlotte, Huntersville, Cornelius, and Davidson, has been running on Spare since February 2025. It grew from 194 boardings in its first month to nearly 7,000 per month by early 2026.

With STS now live, both services run on the same platform. In practice, that means dispatchers and managers work in one system instead of two. Reports don't need to be manually reconciled across different data sources. When something needs attention, the information is already in one place.

That matters more as CATS continues to grow. The agency has 19 microtransit zones planned across Mecklenburg County over the next five years. Each new zone adds riders, trips, and reporting requirements. Running everything on one platform means that complexity doesn't multiply the administrative burden alongside it.

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What riders and staff can expect

Running on the same platform that powers CATS Micro gives dispatchers and administrators a single system, a single data model, and a single point of accountability across both services.

• Real-time scheduling and dispatch. Routing updates as the day unfolds. If a trip runs long or a vehicle is delayed, the system adjusts rather than leaving dispatchers to manage it manually.
• Shared trip visibility. Riders, drivers, and dispatchers all see the same information. When something changes, everyone knows which cuts down the back-and-forth that typically happens mid-run.
• Reporting without manual work. On-time performance, completion rates, and other service metrics that paratransit agencies are required to track are available on demand. For programs the size of STS, that's a meaningful amount of staff time freed up.‍
• Room to grow. As STS adds riders and trips, the platform scales with it, so no need to swap systems at the next inflection point.

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A joint effort

A launch like this runs on the relationship between the agency and the implementation team. The CATS and Spare teams worked closely through every stage — preparation, testing, training, and the cutover itself.

On the CATS side, that meant weeks of work from the STS operations team, Service Operations Supervisors, Field Operations Managers, and Data & Maintenance Compliance Analysts. On the Spare side, the implementation team was there at every step.

The real measure of success, of course, belongs to the riders who depend on STS every day. For them, the best outcome is a launch they never noticed, one where the trips just worked.