Escambia County Paratransit: ECAT, RideITL Cares and How Ride Companies Get Trips

Paratransit in Escambia County changed hands twice between December 2025 and July 2026. On December 22, 2025, ITL Solutions, the company that drove paratransit riders for ECAT, ended that work, and ECAT began carrying all paratransit riders itself. On February 5, 2026, the county commission voted to give up its job as coordinator of the state’s Transportation Disadvantaged (TD) program, and RideITL Cares took it over on July 1, 2026.

Florida’s TD program pays for rides for people who cannot drive or buy a ride because of age, disability, or income, and each county has one Community Transportation Coordinator that contracts with local operators. The statewide rules, Medicaid brokers, and insurance floors are on the Florida guide.

Who runs paratransit in Escambia County

A rider’s door depends on where the trip goes, when, and who pays. The county TD board held a public workshop on September 22, 2026 to explain the split, and both presentations listed “two separate services” among the program’s possible shortfalls.

Service	Run by	Who can ride	How to book
ADA paratransit	ECAT	Riders with an approved ADA application, on trips that start and end within three-quarters of a mile of an ECAT route	By 5 p.m. the day before, up to 7 days ahead. Customer service 850-595-3228
FlexTransit	ECAT	Anyone inside the FlexTransit zone, no application	App or 850-471-6657, up to 24 hours ahead, $2.50 a ride
Transportation Disadvantaged	RideITL Cares	Approved residents over 60 who cannot use the bus, residents with a verified disability, or households at or below 150% of the poverty guidelines, with no other ride	850-332-2209, weekdays 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. The August 2026 plan requires one business day’s notice, and its website asks for two
Medicaid rides	Each health plan’s broker, or Modivcare	Medicaid members	The plan’s ride line

ECAT’s service runs Monday to Saturday, 5:00 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., except holidays. TD trips cover what ECAT does not: rides that start or end outside its bus area, and rides inside it outside those hours. They stop at the county line, because the August 2026 plan offers no trips outside the service area. The regional council’s program page lists RideITL Cares as both coordinator and operator as of September 2026.

How the coordinator changed hands

Date	What happened
July 1, 2014	The county commission becomes coordinator, running trips as Escambia County Community Transportation
FY 2024-25	The county pays ITL Solutions $3,719,243 to operate its trips
December 22, 2025	ITL Solutions ends its paratransit contract with ECAT, and ECAT serves all paratransit riders
February 5, 2026	The commission votes to give up the coordinator role, staying through June 30, 2026
February 28, 2026	The county administrator’s letter tells the state Commission
Spring 2026	The Emerald Coast Regional Council’s request for proposals draws four inquiries and one proposal, from RideITL Cares, which is found complete
May 13, 2026	The Florida-Alabama TPO votes to recommend RideITL Cares
June 11, 2026	The Commission designates RideITL Cares for July 1, 2026 to June 30, 2031
August 18, 2026	RideITL Cares brings its first service plan to the county TD board

RideITL Cares is a new organization. In June 2026, Commission staff wrote that its management team came from ITL Solutions, and they did not recommend its $1.5 million grant request for Sunday and cross-county rides, saying it first needed time to establish regular service and document compliance. At the June 11 meeting, RideITL Cares offered to replace its proposed tiered fares with one uniform rate. The Commission then postponed every grant of that type until its budget was final. RideITL Cares also asked the Commission’s rural capital grant for three 22-foot minibuses, and staff recommended paying for one, at $123,280, in the package for the September 17, 2026 meeting.

What the TD program pays and how much work there is

The plan RideITL Cares brought to the August 18, 2026 board meeting bills by the one-way trip and keeps the county’s rates:

Service	FY 2024/25	FY 2025/26	FY 2026/27
Ambulatory trip	$39.94	$43.56	$43.56
Wheelchair trip	$39.94	$44.49	$44.49
Stretcher trip	None	None	None

Those are the rates the program bills, not a price list for operators. What RideITL Cares pays a contracted company is set in its operator contract. Riders pay a $3.00 co-pay per one-way trip, or $60.00 for 20 trips, and approved personal care attendants ride free.

The state’s 2025 Annual Operating Report shows the size of the county system in FY 2024-25:

Measure	FY 2022-23	FY 2023-24	FY 2024-25
Total trips	110,719	106,824	92,362
ADA paratransit trips	46,909	47,231	45,252
Other paratransit trips	63,810	59,593	47,110
Medical trips	33,859	31,257	28,375
Employment trips	63,825	59,980	50,150
Vehicles	44	41	38
Drivers	35	31	31
Cost per trip	$38.24	$43.65	$50.69

Work trips outnumber medical ones here, and no Medicaid-paid trip went through the county system in any of those years. The county system, ADA trips included, spent $4,681,637 in FY 2024-25, while the Commission’s draft FY 2026-27 trip and equipment grant for Escambia is $929,800, plus a $103,311 local match. The August plan says demand is well above that money and that the county gives no operating subsidy large enough to close the gap. Once a day’s TD budget is booked, RideITL Cares ranks the rest: life-sustaining treatment such as dialysis and chemotherapy first, then duty travel to a military base, then other medical care, then work, school, and groceries.

For private riders, RideITL Cares publishes its own Direct Ride fares, as of September 2026: $2.50 plus $2.50 a mile ambulatory, and $10.00 plus $2.75 a mile in a lift van. That is a local benchmark if you set private pay prices.

How a ride company gets TD trips here

Its website says it partners with local transportation providers that it certifies and trains. Its August 2026 plan says it will keep developing procurements to contract private operators for evening, weekend, and after-hours service, and for more stretcher capacity, which it buys through coordination contracts where available. Its September workshop listed vehicles and funding as possible shortfalls. Because the plan offers no TD trips outside the service area, long-distance medical rides from Escambia fall to other payers and private pay. See long-distance medical transport.

The plan holds every operator to the same standards:

• Drivers. A clear Level 2 background screening before the first trip, and a photo ID or nametag on every run. First aid and CPR training are not required.
• Drug and alcohol testing. A written policy under 49 CFR Part 40 covering pre-employment, random, post-accident, and reasonable suspicion tests.
• Vehicles. Working air conditioning and heat before any rider boards, two-way radio or phone, and seating within the maker’s capacity.
• Service. Help from exterior door to exterior door, and 90% of trips on time within the one-hour pickup window.
• Safety. No more than one chargeable accident per 100,000 miles and at least 10,000 miles between road calls, checked in an annual review.
• Insurance. The county’s operator contracts required $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident, the state floor, in its FY 2024-25 review.
• Payment. Operators are paid within seven working days after RideITL Cares is paid.

The county TD board also has a seat for the private transportation industry. It sat empty at every meeting from August 2025 through May 2026, and the August plan lists filling it among its actions for FY 2026/27. Holding it puts you in the room where the service plan and rates are approved.

Medicaid rides in Escambia County

Escambia belongs to Region A of Statewide Medicaid Managed Care, where each plan hires its own broker and members outside a plan ride with Modivcare. On August 31, 2026, the county’s members in the four main plans were split this way:

Health plan	Members	Broker for its rides
Humana	22,465	Modivcare
Sunshine Health	11,606	Alivi
Simply Healthcare	10,131	Ride2MD
Florida Community Care	1,293	Ride2MD

Modivcare’s 2025 capacity count, filed with the state waiver, listed 26 vehicles in Escambia County: 5 ambulatory, 21 wheelchair, and none for stretchers.

What to do first

1. Call RideITL Cares at 850-332-2209. Ask whether it is adding operators, which contract it would offer you, and what it pays per trip.
2. Build the file before you call. Level 2 screenings, a Part 40 drug and alcohol program, and a certificate of insurance. See subcontracting NEMT trips for what an operator agreement covers.
3. Lead with what is missing. Evening, weekend, and stretcher trips are the gaps the plan names. See starting a stretcher transportation business.
4. Take the empty board seat. Call the regional council at 850-332-7976 and attend the December 1, 2026 meeting.
5. Apply to the Medicaid brokers for the same riders: Modivcare, Alivi, and Ride2MD.

Compare the programs next door in Santa Rosa County and in Okaloosa County, where the county government is still the coordinator.