Centre County MATP: The County Office of Transportation, Its Budget, and the Out-of-County Contract

Centre County holds State College and Penn State, but its Medicaid rides are planned from a county transportation office in Milesburg, near Bellefonte. Two agencies run shared-ride vans in the county, and only one of them is the MATP provider. That one is a county department, so a private company looks here for overflow and contract work, not for a bid to run the program.

Who runs MATP in Centre County

Pennsylvania pays for Medicaid rides through each county’s Medical Assistance Transportation Program (MATP), and only Philadelphia uses a broker. The Pennsylvania guide covers Public Utility Commission (PUC) authority, insurance, and the child abuse and criminal clearances MATP drivers need.

The state’s June 25, 2026 broker study puts Centre among eight “county sole service provider” programs. That label means the county is the MATP transportation provider, and its staff record their MATP hours in a time study so the state can claim the administrative cost. Pike County and Greene County run the same way.

The provider is the Centre County Office of Transportation (CCOT). It runs shared, demand-response rides for seniors, Medical Assistance members, and other county programs, and it also maintains the county government’s vehicle fleet. At an October 14, 2025 budget work session, its director told the commissioners he had 29 drivers.

Two shared-ride services, one MATP provider

PennDOT’s report for fiscal 2024-25 (July 2024 to June 2025) profiles both agencies:

Fiscal 2024-25	CCOT	CATA
Service area	1,113 square miles, the whole county	92 square miles around State College
Total shared-ride trips	81,651	52,677
MATP trips	15,292	none reported
Riders 65 and older	40,673	6,026
Average cost per trip	$34.07	$65.06
Average fare	$22.89	$28.34
Vehicles in peak service	25	26

MATP is about 19% of the county’s trips. Senior riders are by far its largest group.

The money behind Centre County MATP

The state sends MATP money to the county as a yearly allocation, and the Board of Commissioners accepts each one at its Tuesday morning meetings in the Willowbank Office Building in Bellefonte:

Fiscal year	What the commissioners approved	Amount
2024-25	Final allocation (February 10, 2026)	$1,058,506
2024-25	Fourth quarter report, April to June 2025 (August 12, 2025)	$263,395
2025-26	Allocation accepted (September 23, 2025)	$1,177,378
2025-26	Amended allocation (February 10, 2026)	$1,335,236
2025-26	Fourth quarter report, April to June 2026 (August 11, 2026)	$291,526
2026-27	Allocation accepted (September 22, 2026)	$1,312,008

The minutes tie the 2025-26 amendment to the trip cost for psychiatric rehabilitation services, implemented on January 1, 2026. The 2026-27 allocation is $134,630 more than the one first accepted for 2025-26, and $23,228 less than the amended 2025-26 figure.

The fleet is funded separately. On May 12, 2026 the board approved two 2026 Ford Transit accessible vans at $129,923 each, fully funded by PennDOT. PennDOT’s Section 5310 tables credit the county with 12 vehicles and $722,463 from 2020 through 2024, the kind of grant covered in Section 5310 grants. On August 25, 2026 the board also renewed the lease on the transportation office and garage at $48,709.44 a year, rising no more than 2% a year, through August 31, 2031.

What a shared ride costs the public

The commissioners approved new shared-ride full fares, already cleared by PennDOT, on June 10, 2025. They run by distance and average $25.09:

One-way distance	Full fare from July 1, 2025
Under 6 miles	$21.50
6 to 11.9 miles	$24.50
12 to 21.9 miles	$27.50
22 to 31.9 miles	$31.00
32 to 49.9 miles	$36.00
50 to 60.9 miles	$52.00
70 miles or more	$75.00

The minutes list no fare between 61 and 69.9 miles. The table shows what a county van seat costs at full fare, a useful check if you plan private pay rides in the county.

How CCOT rides work

The county’s rules shape what riders expect from any carrier here:

• Registration. Every rider registers before riding, by phone or through PennDOT’s Find My Ride site.
• Booking. Up to two months ahead and no later than 2 p.m. the business day before. Repeat trips at the same place and time can run as a subscription. The only same-day trips are urgent care that a doctor confirms.
• Out of county. The county’s MATP guide, revised June 2025, asks for at least 3 full business days’ notice and a provider’s letter on file saying why the rider cannot be seen locally. These trips are for life-sustaining or critical care from a specialist, or specialized treatment a local provider refers the rider to.
• Mode. Riders with a car can be repaid 25 cents a mile. Riders near a CATA stop with three in-person appointments a month may get a bus pass instead of a van seat.
• Hours. Vans run weekdays and stop by 5 p.m., with no evening trips. In Bellefonte, State College, and Philipsburg, appointments should allow drop-off from 8 a.m. and pick-up by 4 p.m. Outlying areas need later drop-offs and earlier pick-ups.
• Pickup. Drivers arrive about an hour to an hour and a half before the appointment and wait 5 minutes before counting a no-show.
• Help. Service is door to door, but staff do not lift or carry riders, and CCOT supplies no escorts. A rider who needs the lift van must say so each time.
• Changes. Destinations cannot be changed or added on the day. Riders in mental health and intellectual disability programs cannot change their own trips; their counselor calls.
• Holidays. No service on 11 holidays, including Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Juneteenth, Veterans Day, and a spring break.

Where a private company fits in Centre County

1. Get PUC authority. Any paid ride that starts and ends in Pennsylvania needs it. The Pennsylvania guide covers the paratransit filing, which the PUC says takes three months or more.
2. Know the out-of-county contract. On October 28, 2025 the board approved White Diamond Express, LLC to help fill out-of-county MATP trips from November 1, 2025 to October 31, 2030. It pays a $60 minimum for trips of 40 miles or less and $2.90 per loaded mile, rising 5 cents a mile each year. That is the county’s contracted price for an out-of-county MATP trip, a useful check when you set long-distance rates.
3. Call the Office of Transportation. Ask at 814-355-6807 whether it keeps backup carriers for out-of-county or overflow trips, and what it would need from you.
4. Serve the hours county vans skip. Nothing runs on weekends, in the evenings, or on the 11 holidays, and same-day rides are only for urgent care. A Saturday dialysis chair or a Sunday hospital discharge needs another carrier. See same-day trips and hospital discharge transportation.
5. Take the trips MATP excludes. Stretcher trips are not an MATP service, so they go to the rider’s HealthChoices plan, such as UPMC for You.
6. Follow the Tuesday meetings. Allocations, vehicle purchases, and transportation contracts all go through the commissioners, and the county posts agendas and minutes online.

Centre borders counties that buy rides differently. Blair County, Clearfield County, and Mifflin County all hand MATP to a vendor, so their trips come through a contractor instead of a county desk.