Indian River County Paratransit: Community Coach, Its Contract Operators, and What They Are Paid

Indian River County paratransit runs under one name, Community Coach, and through one call center. The Senior Resource Association (SRA), a Vero Beach nonprofit whose 1974 charter named rides for older residents as a goal, operates it alongside GoLine, the county’s fare-free bus network of 14 routes. Community Coach carries two groups: riders certified under the ADA who cannot use GoLine, and Transportation Disadvantaged riders with no other way to travel. For a van company, the real question is how much of that work SRA passes to private operators, and on what terms.

The Transportation Disadvantaged program is Florida’s state-funded ride service for people who cannot drive or buy a ride because of age, disability, or income, run in each county by one community transportation coordinator. Medicaid enrollment, background screening, and the state’s vehicle and driver rules are in the Florida guide.

Who runs paratransit in Indian River County

SRA, then called the Council on Aging, became the county’s first coordinator in 1990 and has held the role ever since. The Indian River County Metropolitan Planning Organization is the planning agency, and its staff run the Transportation Disadvantaged Local Coordinating Board, which reviews SRA every year. The board last recommended SRA on February 23, 2023, and the state commission approved its current term on June 15, 2023, running to June 30, 2028. MPO staff told the board in February 2026 that the next formal selection falls in 2028.

The service area is the whole county: the unincorporated areas plus Vero Beach, Sebastian, Fellsmere, Indian River Shores, and Orchid. Every trip, whoever drives it, is booked and scheduled by SRA’s customer care center, which SRA said in August 2025 takes 4,000 to 5,000 calls a month.

How riders book Community Coach

The service plan presented on November 16, 2023 sets these rules, and SRA’s reports to the board since then add the rest:

• Booking. 772-569-0903, up to two weeks ahead, with two business days’ notice for Transportation Disadvantaged trips and one day for ADA trips. SRA now fills same-day requests when it can, and riders with an email address can book in its app.
• Fares. $2 each way for a Transportation Disadvantaged trip. ADA trips are free.
• Who qualifies for state-funded trips. Someone over 55, with a disability, or in a household under the county’s median income, with no other funding or way to travel, whose trip starts or ends beyond a quarter mile of a GoLine stop (three quarters of a mile for riders with disabilities). Riders cannot certify themselves, and eligibility renews every three years.
• Priorities. When seats run short, medical trips come first, then grocery and meal trips, then social service agency trips.
• Across the county line. Eligible residents of southern Brevard County who live south of Grant Road may ride Community Coach into Indian River, and SRA holds agreements that let it run trips in Brevard and St. Lucie counties.

Indian River County in numbers

The state’s 2024-25 operating report shows a large jump, and most of it is a counting change. A November 10, 2025 MPO staff memo says SRA’s Advantage Ride trips for riders with developmental disabilities were counted as paratransit trips for the first time, which took trips run by SRA and its operators from 49,575 to 84,546.

Measure	2023-24	2024-25
Total trips	73,995	112,855
ADA paratransit trips	37,832	38,051
Medical trips	24,809	24,891
Trips run by contracted operators	10,086	46,495
Trips run by agencies for their own clients	24,420	28,309
Paid to contracted operators	$1,033,619	$2,363,480
Vehicles and drivers	56 and 66	77 and 111
Cost per trip	$40.28	$38.68

In 2024-25 the operator count equals the 46,495 trips the state commission paid for, Advantage Ride among them, so it is not a count of overflow trips alone. Neither year shows a single trip paid by the Medicaid agency.

How private operators get Community Coach trips

The coordinator evaluation the board approved on February 26, 2026 names three operators under contract in 2024-25: Round the Clock Transportation, Ultimate Comfort Transportation, and TMC Transportation, which joined in January 2023. Each runs ambulatory and wheelchair trips on the state commission’s standard contract, which carries performance standards and the grant’s payment terms for subcontractors. All three contracts were set to end on June 30, 2026, so ask SRA which ones it renewed.

The work reaches operators as overflow. SRA builds its own drivers’ runs first, then emails a report of the trips that did not fit on a Community Coach bus to its contractors as needed, weighing each company’s cost, capability, capacity, and history with particular riders. SRA does not put this work out to bid. The evaluation says it negotiates with any company that wants to drive for it and picks the safest, most reliable, and least costly option when it cannot run a trip itself. SRA’s 2025 service plan for Martin County describes its Indian River practice the same way: vendors are a last resort, and its own drivers come first.

SRA has also said it wants more help. In the same evaluation, it said it had started contracting work out to vendors so it could offer more service, named more drivers at peak times of day as the place coordination could improve, and called the lack of other transportation vendors its main barrier. The two agencies that carry their own clients under coordination agreements, The Abilities Resource Center of Indian River County and Camp Haven, are a different route, one that fits an agency with its own clients and funding.

What the contracts pay

The operator rates sit well below the state rate SRA receives, because SRA’s rate must also cover scheduling, dispatch, and its own fleet.

Trip	Operator contract, 2024-25	SRA state rate, 2026-27
Ambulatory	$20 flat	$34.68
Wheelchair	$25 flat	$59.45
Past 10 miles	Plus $2 a mile	Same per-trip rate

Under those terms, a 30-mile wheelchair trip pays an operator $65. The state money behind these trips is tight. SRA told the board on August 28, 2025 that its trip and equipment grant had shrunk from $419,000 four years earlier to about $381,000 under the formula the state adopted in 2021, which leans in part on the trips and miles a county reported the year before. To report more state-funded trips, SRA asked to bill the state less than its $37.59 ambulatory and $64.44 wheelchair rates for 2025-26 and cover the difference with bus advertising money, and the board voted for the cut that day. The 2025-26 allocation was $343,354 plus a $38,150 local match, and SRA reported in July 2026 that it had used all of it.

What SRA checks before it sends you trips

From the February 2026 evaluation and the service plan:

• Insurance. Rule 41-2.006(1) of the Florida Administrative Code has required $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident for every trip bought through a coordinator since September 3, 2018. The evaluation lists $100,000 and $300,000 as the minimum in SRA’s own operator contracts, so buy to the state figure. See NEMT insurance requirements.
• Safety plan and drug testing. Operators follow SRA’s public transportation agency safety plan, and SRA’s drug and alcohol policy, built on Federal Transit Administration rules, covers its contracted operators.
• Driver files. For each driver: training, drug and alcohol results, a driving record review, and the latest criminal record check, along with a current roster and proof that every driver finished a training program. SRA pulls Florida driving records for your drivers from time to time and tells you about any violations.
• Vehicles. SRA inspects every vehicle, lift or ramp, and securement system at least once a year and may inspect your vans, shop, and maintenance records during working hours. A vehicle that fails a contract standard stays off the road until it is fixed.
• The December review. Each December SRA checks every operator against local, state commission, and FDOT standards and its insurance rules, then sends a written report. Any corrective action comes before more trips.
• Service standards. The service plan sets 95% on-time performance, no more than 2 complaints per 1,000 trips, and no more than 1 accident per 100,000 miles.

What changed in 2026: Advantage Ride ended

The Treasure Coast Developmental Disability Advantage Ride was SRA’s program for riders with intellectual and developmental disabilities in Indian River, Martin, St. Lucie, and Okeechobee counties, paid by a state Innovative Service Development grant of about $1.5 million a year. SRA told the board in May 2025 that 91% of its trips took riders to work. It carried 40,256 trips in 2025-26, 9% more than the year before.

The grant ended on June 30, 2026, and SRA logged 303 complaints about the closing from April through June. Former riders were pointed to their counties’ regular programs, with shorter hours and trip priorities. SRA applied for a new grant, the Treasure Coast Transportation Access Program, for after-hours trips and trips between Indian River and St. Lucie, but on June 11, 2026 the state commission tabled its 2026-27 innovation grant awards because the state budget was not final. Its September 17, 2026 package proposes striking that grant from Rule 41-2.014 because it has no recurring funding. Martin County lost a second innovation grant as well, one that had paid for most of its Community Coach trips.

Does Indian River County license wheelchair vans

No. Chapter 304 of the county code was once titled life support and wheelchair services. The county commission repealed Part II, the wheelchair vehicle rules, with Ordinance 2022-001 on January 18, 2022. Section 304.03 still defines a non-emergency medical transportation service, but the four certificate classes in section 304.04 all cover ambulances, with a $100 filing fee and a review by the county’s emergency services director.

The local step is a business tax receipt under chapter 207. In the unincorporated county it costs $40 a year, and a first receipt bought after December costs less, down to $4 in September. The tax collector sells receipts from July 1, they are due by September 30, and a late renewal adds 10% in October plus 5% a month, up to 25%. A business run from a vehicle keeps the receipt in the vehicle. Statewide rules are in Florida NEMT license rules.

Medicaid rides in Indian River County

SRA stopped coordinating Medicaid trips in 2014 after the state’s Medicaid changes. Indian River is in Medicaid Region G under section 409.966 of the Florida Statutes, and members outside a health plan book with Modivcare at 1-866-726-1457. The 2025 capacity tables in the state’s NEMT waiver list no Modivcare vehicles in Indian River County; the Region G vehicles it listed were in Palm Beach (49) and St. Lucie (45). The Modivcare in Florida page covers how to join that network.

Most members are in a plan, and each plan picks its broker. As of August 31, 2026:

Plan	Indian River members, main plan	Who books its rides
Sunshine Health	6,756	Alivi
Humana	4,465	Modivcare
Simply Healthcare	2,226	Ride2MD
Community Care Plan	1,053	Modivcare
Florida Community Care	179	Ride2MD

Those five plans hold 14,679 of the county’s 14,683 main-plan members. Long-term care adds 761 more, led by Florida Community Care (261) and Sunshine (227).

What to do first in Indian River County

1. Call SRA at 772-569-0111. Ask which operator contracts it renewed after June 30, 2026, what they pay now, and whether it still needs drivers at peak hours. Ask for a copy of the standard contract before you sign.
2. Build the file SRA reviews. A certificate of insurance at $200,000 and $300,000 or more, a drug and alcohol program on federal transit rules, driver files with driving records and background checks, and vehicle maintenance records. Subcontracting NEMT trips covers how overflow deals like this usually work.
3. Get the business tax receipt. $40 in the unincorporated county, plus a city receipt if your business is based in a city.
4. Go to a board meeting. The Local Coordinating Board meets next on November 19, 2026 at 10 a.m. Its 2026 meetings were held in Conference Room B1-501, County Administration Building B, 1800 27th Street, Vero Beach, and MPO staff answer at 772-226-1455. The yearly review of SRA is where operator contracts and complaints come up.
5. Enroll with Florida Medicaid, then apply to the brokers. Alivi, Modivcare, and Ride2MD carry the county’s plan members, and Modivcare also carries members outside a plan.

SRA also coordinates Martin County to the south, where contract companies drive every Transportation Disadvantaged trip. St. Lucie County coordinates its own program, and Brevard County lies to the north.