The Charlotte Area Transit System will soon start looking for a new company to run its bus system, after years of operational problems and declining ridership.
They avoided a strike by its bus drivers with a successful contract vote this weekend. Within the next two months, the city will issue a request for proposals from private companies to run the bus system.
CATS contracts with RATP Dev, a private company, to run its bus system. Bus drivers work for RATP Dev, not the city of Charlotte. The arrangement stems from the fact that CATS bus drivers are unionized — but under state law, cities can’t negotiate with public unions in North Carolina. RATP Dev, a French company with a U.S. subsidiary, serves as a workaround, negotiating with and managing the bus drivers. Their contract runs through next February.
“We will, within the next 30 to 60 days, issue an RFP (request for proposals) for a new bus operations division provider. RATP Dev may or may not propose on that, but we expect some competition in that in that RFP and we'll be making the selection and then making the transition plan ahead of February of 2024,” interim CATS chief executive Brent Cagle told Charlotte City Council’s transportation and economic development committee on Monday.
Last month, CATS drivers voted to authorize a strike after rejecting three contract offers from RATP Dev. They voted on Saturday to approve a new contract, with a vote total of 200 in favor, 10 against, Cagle said.
But Cagle told City Council he doesn’t yet have all the details on the new contract. In a move that highlights the sometimes-unwieldy nature of the city’s arrangement with RATP Dev, Cagle said that CATS — which pays the drivers — is still gathering information about what’s in the new contract and whether it increases costs for CATS enough that it requires a vote from City Council for approval.
A spokesperson for the SMART Union, which represents CATS drivers, said the new contract includes a cumulative 15% pay increase, an additional paid day off for the Juneteenth holiday, double-pay for working on holidays, changes to work rules, higher pay for night shifts and a higher pension cap.
“While we're not a party to those specific things, we pay the bill, right? And so where the rubber meets the road is as they bargain for higher pay or those kinds of things, that means that the contract costs in total to the city go up. We need to evaluate with RATP Dev what the cost of this new contract is,” Cagle said.
Since 2014, CATS has lost roughly 75% of bus riders, WFAE previously found. That’s higher than any comparable major city. The pandemic only accelerated that trend. Over the past year, CATS has struggled with a driver shortage, has cut bus schedules to try to improve reliability, and dealt with driver safety concerns after a bus operator was shot and killed in a road rage incident.
City Council members at Monday’s committee meeting said they were dissatisfied that RATP Dev hasn’t regularly presented to or interacted with the council. They said they want to hear from the private company operating the city’s buses more frequently —not just when there’s a crisis — whether that’s RATP Dev or another company.
“I think it's really important for council to be informed and updated because when something happens, then the questions are to the council members. And I think it's really unfair for us not to be armed with the information. And if you just indicated if we're paying the bills, then I want to know and have an understanding who am I paying,” said council member Malcolm Graham.
“This committee really needs to be a little bit more engaged and involved,” Graham added. Committee chair Ed Driggs said that while he agrees the City Council needs to be aware of what’s going on, the prohibition against negotiating with unionized employees means there’s not much Charlotte can actually do about its bus system.
“In light of all of the publicity and the difficulties we've seen and the safety issues for the drivers, we need to involve ourselves or be informed,” he said. “But we can't exercise any direct authority.”
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