Sumter County FL Transit: How MTM Transit Runs Every Trip and Where Ride Companies Fit

Sumter County has carried its own residents since 1977, when its Senior Services Program started with one driver and two vehicles. The state named the Board of County Commissioners the county’s Community Transportation Coordinator in April 1993, and on October 1, 2011, Sumter County Transit became a full brokerage. The county’s Transit office takes the applications and reservations, and one contractor, MTM Transit, then called Ride Right, drives every trip. Florida’s Transportation Disadvantaged program buys rides for residents who cannot drive or pay for one because of age, disability, or income, and the statewide rules are on the Florida guide.

What Sumter County Transit runs

Sumter County Transit is part of the county’s Public Works department. Its service plan, updated June 1, 2026, lists these services:

• Trust fund trips. Door-to-door rides on weekdays, in and out of the county, for residents who qualify for the state program. The plan lists ambulatory, wheelchair, and stretcher service.
• General public trips. Door-to-door rides on the same days for anyone, subsidized 50% by federal Section 5311 rural grants and the county commission.
• Agency programs. Weekday trips to the Mid-Florida Community Services meal sites in Wildwood and Sumterville, and to the Arc Nature Coast.
• Two shuttles. The Orange/South Sumter route, 7:45 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., and the Wildwood Circulator, 8:45 a.m. to 2:45 p.m., run Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Riders flag them down along the route, and they leave it by up to three-quarters of a mile for a reserved stop.

The service plan lists who qualifies for trust fund trips: residents with a disability, residents under 19 or over 60, households under 200% of the federal poverty level ($31,920 for one person in 2026), riders no other agency pays for, and riders who cannot provide their own transportation. Door-to-door fares are $1.00 inside the county and $4.00 out of county for adults, $0.50 and $2.00 for riders 60 and older, and free for children riding with a parent. Shuttle fares start at $0.25.

Reservations are taken only by phone with a staff member, weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., at 352-568-6683. The service plan sets a 24-hour minimum and asks for 48 hours, and the county’s reservation page asks for three days because of driver and vehicle limits. Riders can book two weeks ahead or set up recurring trips. Three no-shows in 90 days can bring a suspension of up to a month, and each no-show adds a $2.00 fee to the next fare.

Where the vans go and when

Each destination has its own days and appointment window, and riders must be ready well before the appointment, under the service plan and the county’s passenger guide:

Destination	Days	Appointment between	Ready before it
Inside Sumter County	Monday to Friday	8:30 a.m. and 3:00 p.m.	1.5 hours
Leesburg	Monday to Friday	9:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.	2 hours
VA clinic, Summerfield	Tuesday and Thursday	8:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.	2 hours
Gainesville	Monday, Wednesday, Friday	8:00 a.m. and noon	3 hours

Out-of-county trips stop at Gainesville and ten miles past the county line. The county’s reservations page gives a narrower Gainesville window, 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. The plan sets an on-time standard of 96% of appointments, and the county reported an average of 99.31% from April 2025 through March 2026.

The MTM Transit contract

MTM Transit, LLC drives from 1525 Industrial Drive in Wildwood under a contract that runs from August 1, 2025 to July 31, 2028. The county broadcast request for proposals 017-0-2025 on May 5, 2025, with a legal notice in the Daily Sun the same day, and opened proposals in Bushnell on June 9. Two came in, from MV Transportation, Inc. and MTM Transit. On June 12 the selection committee scored them on five weighted criteria:

• Similar work for other public entities, including references: 40%
• Cost: 30%
• Completeness, and how the work will meet performance expectations: 10%
• Experience of the staff assigned to the county: 10%
• Resources available to the firm: 10%

MTM Transit scored 12.80 to MV’s 11.50. One committee member noted that MV had offered multi-year pricing and MTM had not, but scored MTM higher because its proposal was easier to work through. FDOT concurred on July 10, and the commission approved the contract with its other contract items, 5-0, on July 22, 2025. It replaced an agreement that ended August 17, 2025. MTM Transit is an affiliate of MTM Health, and the county’s monthly transit reports list it as Medical Transportation Management. MTM Health is also the state’s ride broker for Sumter Medicaid members outside a health plan.

How the next operator gets picked

The service plan allows two ways to choose an operator: a request for proposals that picks one company, or a request for qualifications that approves every qualified operator and hands out trips on rotation. For service needed on short notice, the county can negotiate a contract directly. Openings are announced through newspaper notices and an online bid service, and the coordinating board reviews operator contracts every year. Two dates line up: the county’s term as coordinator ends June 30, 2028, and the MTM Transit contract ends a month later. For how public ride bids are posted and scored, see government NEMT contracts.

The vans are the county’s. The 2026 plan lists 21 county transit vehicles, mostly Ford cutaway buses and Transit vans, and says a 2025 Section 5310 grant approved six new buses and the county applied in 2026 for six more. See Section 5310 grants.

What Sumter County pays and what it buys

Sumter prices trips by the mile, unlike the flat per-trip rates next door in Lake County. Its rate model sets what sponsoring agencies pay and what the state’s trust fund pays for non-sponsored riders:

Rate per mile	2025-26	2026-27
Ambulatory rider	$4.89	$4.72
Wheelchair rider	$8.38	$8.09
Escort	$4.89	$4.72

In FY 2024-25, the system carried 43,278 trips for 410 riders, 8,487 of them medical. The state’s trust fund paid for 27,426, the Agency for Persons with Disabilities for 7,895, and Medicaid for none. Wheelchair riders took 2,408 trips, up from 1,726 the year before, and stretcher riders took none. The county spent $1,589,927, or $36.74 a trip, up from $30.83 two years earlier, and $1,484,491 of it went to MTM Transit. From April 2025 through March 2026, the county paid MTM Transit $1,665,117, between $123,184 and $165,631 a month. The Commission’s draft trip and equipment grant for Sumter in 2026-27 was $371,051, plus a $41,227 local match, as of June 11, 2026.

The board’s FY 2025 evaluation of the coordinator found one problem: 1.84 accidents per 100,000 vehicle miles, against the county’s standard of 1.4. Riders in its survey asked for easier ways to pay and longer reservation hours, and the evaluation team suggested taking reservations after 1:00 p.m.

Licenses in Sumter County

Sumter County licenses ambulances, not vans. Section 11-2 of the county code requires a certificate of public convenience and necessity from the commission for advanced life support and basic life support transportation, under Ordinance 2003-24 as amended by Ordinance 2016-23 on December 13, 2016. A wheelchair or stretcher van company follows the state steps on the Florida guide instead: Medicaid enrollment, owner screening, and broker credentialing.

Medicaid rides in Sumter County

Sumter is in Medicaid Region B under section 409.966, where the state’s waiver for July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2027 sends members outside a plan to MTM Health. The waiver’s 2025 count of MTM’s Sumter network was nine vehicles, six cabs and three lift vans, with no stretcher vehicle. Of the 7,895 Sumter residents in the main Medicaid health plans on August 31, 2026:

• Alivi arranges rides for Sunshine Health, with 4,242 members.
• MTM Health arranges rides for UnitedHealthcare, with 1,811 members, since March 1, 2026.
• Modivcare arranges rides for Humana, Aetna, and Community Care Plan, with 1,397 members.
• Ride2MD arranges rides for Simply Healthcare and Florida Community Care, with 445 members.

Gaps a ride company can fill in Sumter County

• Afternoons, evenings, and weekends. Door-to-door appointments end at 3:00 p.m., reservations close at 1:00 p.m., and nothing runs on weekends. After hours, MTM Transit’s on-call service is pre-authorized only for registered riders going to or from the emergency rooms at Leesburg Regional Medical Center and Villages Regional Medical Center. The plan names limited intake and service hours as a gap and says funding keeps the county from expanding them. See after-hours NEMT.
• Stretcher trips. The plan lists stretcher service, but the rate model has no stretcher rate, the system carried no stretcher trips in FY 2024-25, and MTM Health’s 2025 Sumter network had no stretcher vehicle. See stretcher van requirements.
• Longer trips. Specialist care beyond Gainesville or more than ten miles past the county line, such as in Orlando or Tampa, is outside the county’s service. See long-distance medical transport.
• Veterans. The county reaches the Summerfield VA clinic only on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Gainesville three days a week. See VA beneficiary travel.
• Seniors paying their own way. About 58% of residents are 65 or older, and the county’s plan counts 79,077 residents of The Villages in the 2020 census, three in five county residents. See private-pay NEMT.
• Work under MTM Transit. With one operator and no coordination contractors, ask MTM Transit about subcontract work, and read subcontracting NEMT trips before you sign.

What to do first

1. Enroll with Florida Medicaid and apply to Alivi, since Sunshine Health covers more than half of Sumter’s plan members, then to MTM Health, Modivcare, and Ride2MD.
2. Call Sumter County Public Works at 352-689-4400. Ask when the next operator procurement is planned and whether the county would add an operator for stretcher, evening, or weekend trips, which its plan allows on short notice.
3. Watch for the next request for proposals or qualifications in county legal notices as July 31, 2028 approaches. The 2025 scoring put references and past public work at 40%, so line up public clients who will vouch for you.
4. Attend the Sumter coordinating board on December 14, 2026 at 2:00 p.m. It has been meeting at the Lake-Sumter MPO office, 1300 Citizens Boulevard, Suite 175, in Leesburg.

Lake County next door also hires a single operator, RATP Dev USA, but adds seven coordination contractors, and Sumter’s Gainesville trips end in Alachua County.