Who We Are
WHO WE ARE
About Us
Veterans Ride Connect is the first-ever mobility management center in Oklahoma. This ground-breaking agency is the first of its kind
in Oklahoma with transit providers working together to provide transportation services to veterans.
All transits are invited to join us in this noble endeavor.
Current Transit Providers of the Veterans Ride Connect Consortium
• Pelivan Transit
• KI BOIS Area Transit System (KATS)
• Cimarron Public Transit System
• Muskogee County Transit Authority
• Muscogee (Creek) Nation
•JAMM Transit
Our Mission
Establish one-call/one-clickconnectivity to provide transitcustomers with a single point ofcontact to learn about availabletransportation resources.
Our Vision
• Provide safe and reliable transportation to enhance the quality of life of the veterans in our region.
• Fill the gaps in service for veterans’ transportation needs within our region.
• Coordinate with the Jack C. Montgomery VA Hospital and other VA clinics and hospitals for medical trips.
• Improve user-friendly access to paratransit providers.
Who We Are
Veterans Ride Connect Provides Veterans
With Safe and Reliable Transportation
Our Story
In July 2011, the U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Transit Administration, launched a new program called the Veterans Transportation and Community Living Initiative (VTCLI) to help ensure that getting a ride to work or to a medical appointment would no longer be an obstacle for veterans or their families.
The VTCLI awarded grants to local transportation providers and other groups so they could better coordinate and deliver important transit information through “one-call/one-click” centers.
The program’s scope in northeast Oklahoma was to create a 25-county “one-call/one-click” Call Center coordinating transportation in and around the Tulsa and Muskogee Veterans Administration medical clinics, incorporating urban, rural, tribal, Disabled American Veterans (DAV) and VA transportation.
The Indian Nations Council of Governments (INCOG) was awarded two consecutive VTCLI grants for Round I and Round II of this project. The grants awarded were capital funding specifically for technology needs for transit providers to enable them to link together and to better coordinate transit information through a one-call/one-click call center. This one-call/one-click call center means veterans throughout the more than 25-county region would have one phone number to call for a ride connection.
An invitation to participate in the project went out to transit providers across the region, and six well-known and well-established transit services responded. They planned to continue to collaborate and build partnerships with other transit services throughout the eastern half of Oklahoma.
Pelivan Transit in Big Cabin, Okla., offered to use its Call Center as the central hub for the project. The grants helped facilitate the upgrades needed at the existing location, bringing about a state-of-the-art call center and the technology to support it. The project was completed in late 2015.
The six founding transit providers — Pelivan Transit, KI BOIS Area Transit (KATS), Cimarron Public Transit System, Morton Comprehensive Health Services, Muskogee County Transit Authority and Muscogee (Creek) Nation — saw the need for coordinating transportation resources for veterans and understood the importance such a system would be for the veteran community of northeast Oklahoma. These transit agencies began working together as the Veterans Ride Connect.
In early 2019, JAMM Transit joined the Veterans Ride Connect consortium, increasing our service area to more than 29 counties across eastern Oklahoma.
Veterans Ride Connect consortium partners provided more than 16,000 trips for veterans in 2018 .
