Lewiston, Auburn and Portland commuter bus driver Cindy Goodrich waits for passengers to board Thursday afternoon during a stop at the Lewiston Bus Station on Oak Street. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

LEWISTON — More and more people are taking the new commuter bus between Lewiston, Auburn and Portland as the new pilot service gets off the ground.

Cindy Goodrich has been behind the wheel since the Maine Department of Transportation-sponsored service began its several daily trips between the cities July 22.

“It has tripled,” Goodrich said after comparing the number of riders Thursday to early days of the service.

Goodrich and other drivers keep a tally of riders as they board the bus. On a clipboard, they note the pickup and drop-off locations of riders. Goodrich said Lewiston’s Oak Street Bus Station and Auburn’s Great Falls Plaza were the two most frequented locations.

As of Thursday, the Oak Street Bus Station’s schedule was outdated and the Great Falls Plaza did not have one.

Pointing to a mounted tablet used mostly for navigation, Goodrich said the buses use GPS trackers. However, the tracking feature is not available to riders. “This already tracks us. So, wherever we are, the dispatch can tell. If we didn’t show up here and you called the number, they can tell you if we’re a few minutes late, or if there’s been an accident or something and we’re gonna be behind,” she added.

Goodrich was positive the schedules were set for a while. “I don’t think (they’re going to make any changes) because the schedule is what it is. In the winter, it might change because of the roads, but it is what it is,” she said.

Goodrich said she was starting to recognize some regular riders.

“There’s a lot of people that really like it,” she said. “This lady just said today that she wouldn’t be able to see her grandkids if we didn’t have the LAP,” the name of the service. “She rides with us maybe twice a month. I pick her up at Great Falls and bring her to the bus stop (in Portland.) She goes down there for the weekend and then we pick her back up Sunday.”

Sabrina Linscott was headed from Lewiston to Portland on Thursday. She said she rides the bus up to three times a week for a round trip. “I go down there for appointments and seeing my kids. I like it a lot,” she said.

Sabrina Linscott looks out the window of the Lewiston, Auburn, Portland commuter bus Thursday afternoon at the Lewiston Bus Station on Oak Street. She was on her way to see her children in Portland. She says she “would not be able to see them without this service.” Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

Like Linscott, Marianne Williams has come to appreciate the service. Williams, who lives in Portland and works at Bates College in Lewiston, made a simpler version of the schedule and shared it with her Bates community in an email a few weeks ago. “The PDF schedule that is on (the Department of Transportation) website, is not very accessible and it’s a bit difficult to read,” Williams said.

After almost two months, the schedule still lacks a reading guide and is not mobile-friendly. The schedule is color-coded but it’s unclear what the colors mean. Apparently, the Portland Transportation Center stop on the schedule serves as a midpoint between pickups and drop-offs. Timestamps to the left indicate pickups, while those on the right show drop-offs, one dispatcher said Tuesday.

“I’ve taken it quite late at night, like after 9 o’clock and the LAP has been really helpful, because for me, there aren’t very many options aside from taking an Uber or driving myself to get from Lewiston to Portland,” Williams said. “The LAP is really, really well marked at the Portland Transportation Center. It is very easy to figure out where the pickup is if you’re coming in on the Amtrak or the Concord,” she added.

“I think a tracker would probably make it better and give riders more of a sense of not necessarily control, but the ability to see what’s going on in real time,” Williams said.

Some riders have reported a “bumpier,” or “shakier,” ride aboard the LAP. Williams has noticed that too.

“I have not found it particularly uncomfortable, but it is definitely a bumpier ride than other public transit buses I’ve taken in Maine,” she said. “But for me, that would not be a deterrent. I’m very supportive of the LAP project. I would like to see the state of Maine support it more,” Williams added. “I actually do have my own private car, but I often choose to use public transport.”

“I think it’s just the way the chassis of this vehicle is constructed versus a bigger coach,” Charles Carnegie said when trying to explain the bumpier ride he’d experienced aboard the LAP. According to the Maine Department of Transportation’s website, there are two buses in service, one with 26 seats and the other with 24. A second 26-seat bus was set to be on the roads in August. It’s unclear if it is in service.

“I think it was reasonably comfortable,” Carnegie said. “There aren’t the creature comforts like wider seats or more leg room. It was fine for a short trip. The most important thing for me is that the service is being offered at a reasonable rate,” he added.

At $8 per ride, the service takes cash payments in the exact amount or passes, bought and activated through an application called Token Transit. Upon activation, each pass is valid for roughly 20 minutes to board the bus.

According to some riders, inactivated passes disappear after a while. Carnegie has had his paid-for-but-inactivated pass just vanish.

“I knew I was going to take a return trip, so I just bought two tickets at the same time in the morning before my first trip. When I jumped on the bus for the return trip, I pulled out my phone and the second ticket, somehow, I had lost,” Carnegie said. “If you’re trying to be efficient and you buy several tickets just in case, then it should be on your phone when you’re ready to use it,” he added.

“Yesterday on my return trip, there was a lady who was tendering a $20 bill. The driver explained that he doesn’t have cash and she has to have exact change. She then had $7. She started begging passengers for an extra dollar to make it back on time,” Carnegie recalled. “I eventually gave her the extra dollar. It’s a humiliating position to put passengers in. You have to factor in the fact that the person then has to wait around for another hour and a half to get another bus, or if it’s the last bus of the day, they’re stranded,” he added.

“On my four trips, they’ve had five, six passengers each time. There’s never been fewer than that, and I’ve taken it in nonpeak hours for the most part,” Carnegie said. “They need to better communicate about the fact that this service exists.”

For Jon Diotalevi, the uncertainty is the most challenging part of taking the bus. “I take the bus mostly for visiting friends in Portland. With no signs or bus tracker how am I or anyone else able to trust the bus will show up? Sometimes it doesn’t. Is the bus late? Did it leave early? For a while I wasn’t even sure if I was waiting in the right spot,” Diotalevi said. “If this is supposed to be a pilot program for more extensive mass transit, then it’s a deeply unserious attempt,” he added.

RTW Management Inc. is the Utah-based contractor overseeing the $2.8 million pilot project. The company could not be reached Thursday for questions about the project’s timeframe for upcoming changes, if any.

A Lewiston, Auburn, Portland commuter bus, background, waits for passengers Thursday afternoon at the Lewiston Bus Station on Oak Street in Lewiston. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal