Indiana County MATP: How rabbittransit and IndiGO Split the Work, and Where Carriers Fit

Indiana County’s Medical Assistance Transportation Program (MATP) is split between two public agencies. rabbittransit, based in York and Harrisburg, holds the state agreement and handles the rider paperwork. IndiGO, the Indiana County Transit Authority on Saltsburg Avenue in Indiana, takes the ride requests, drives most of the trips, and brings in other carriers under its own subcontracts. For a small NEMT company in or near Indiana, IndiGO is where MATP work starts.

Who runs MATP in Indiana County

MATP pays for rides to Medical Assistance services when a member has no other way to get there, and outside Philadelphia a county or a transit agency runs it. The Pennsylvania guide covers the statewide rules, Public Utility Commission (PUC) licensing, and driver clearances.

Indiana County ran its own MATP until the end of 2019. In a resolution dated November 27, 2019, the county commissioners said the models the Department of Human Services (DHS) now prescribed meant the county would no longer provide the program’s administrative oversight. They asked the Central Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (CPTA), which does business as rabbittransit, to assume every administrative duty, and said CPTA would partner with the Indiana County Transit Authority to deliver the rides. CPTA’s board had passed Resolution 1920 for the Indiana program on November 21, 2019, and rabbittransit took over on January 1, 2020.

DHS added Indiana to rabbittransit’s direct agreement, number 4100081366, from January 1, 2020. Since October 1, 2022, the county has sat in rabbittransit’s intergovernmental agreement 4100094418, renewed in July 2025 through September 30, 2027. DHS’s June 25, 2026 broker study counts Indiana among 13 counties that let DHS manage MATP through a direct agreement with a transit agency. Yet rabbittransit’s own requests for proposals page lists the counties where it runs service, and Indiana is not one of them. In Indiana County the driving belongs to IndiGO.

rabbittransit’s Indiana County page, as of September 2026, and its MATP booklet divide the work this way:

rabbittransit, York	IndiGO, Indiana
MATP applications and eligibility	Takes trip requests at its call center
Mileage and bus ticket claims, due by the 5th of each month	Schedules and provides the majority of trips
Personal care assistant forms, which need a doctor’s verification	Runs the vehicles riders already know
Urgent care approval by its Mobility Planning staff	Books the urgent trip once rabbittransit approves it

How Indiana County riders book, and the rules drivers follow

The IndiGO call center at 724-801-8857 takes MATP trip requests weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., and riders must book by 1:30 p.m. two business days before the appointment. The state’s MATP contact list, updated June 18, 2026, gives 724-465-2140, IndiGO’s main line, and rabbittransit’s 1-800-524-2766 for the county. The November 2020 booklet that rabbittransit still links adds 1-877-893-3270 for bookings and 724-801-8860 to cancel.

That booklet also fixes the days MATP rides leave the county:

Appointment in	Ride days
Allegheny or Westmoreland County	Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday
Cambria County	Monday, Wednesday, and Friday
Clearfield or Jefferson County	Wednesday and Friday
Armstrong County	Monday and Thursday

Those appointments must fall between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., and the one-hour rule, which limits how early a rider is dropped off and how long they wait afterward, does not apply to them. A Pittsburgh run can mean a long wait at the appointment, so price those days with rural NEMT costs in mind.

The booklet’s rules for drivers: pick up no sooner than 15 minutes before and no later than 15 minutes after the scheduled time, and wait five minutes before recording a no-show. A rider who cancels less than an hour before the window counts as a late cancellation. Since July 26, 2025, a DHS waiver that covers MATP trips in Indiana and rabbittransit’s other direct agreement counties lets the vehicle arrive any time in the pickup window and wait at least five minutes.

IndiGO’s general shared ride service, which also carries seniors and riders with disabilities, runs anywhere in Indiana County from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday, a schedule in effect since February 1, 2024. It goes to Punxsutawney weekdays from 9 a.m. to a last pickup at 4 p.m. Its trips to Allegheny County run weekdays from 8 a.m. to a last pickup at 4 p.m. and need two fare-paying riders to go.

How much MATP work Indiana County has

PennDOT’s report for fiscal year 2024-25 (July 2024 to June 2025) profiles IndiGO’s community transportation:

IndiGO shared ride, fiscal 2024-25	Figure
MATP trips	4,762
Trips for riders 65 and older	18,309
All shared ride trips	25,832
Average cost per shared ride trip	$41.99
Average shared ride fare	$25.37
Vehicles in peak community service	11
Service area	827 square miles, 83,246 residents (2020 Census)

The same profile charts $1.755 million in operating funds for IndiGO’s community transportation that year, and MATP is the largest share. The money reaches IndiGO through rabbittransit. DHS pays rabbittransit one all-inclusive fee per completed trip across every county in its agreement, $46.15 from October 2022, a rate DHS kept through September 30, 2025. The York County page lists each period. What rabbittransit pays IndiGO, and what IndiGO pays its carriers, sits in their own agreements.

IndiGO’s board agendas show that it buys part of the driving. On March 26, 2025, new business listed subcontractor agreements for MATP transportation and an agreement with rabbittransit for MATP. On April 23, 2025, the board was asked to authorize a requested mileage increase for MATP subcontractors for fiscal 2025-26.

IndiGO’s ADA paratransit policy, revised January 25, 2023, sets the standards it holds its service to. For trips it runs itself, it requires at least 94% of pickups within 15 minutes of the scheduled time and no more than 1% missed trips. The same policy tells contractors to send every rider complaint to the IndiGO office, and it sets a standard of fewer than three valid complaints per 1,000 trips. If IndiGO also asks you to carry its ADA riders, becoming an ADA paratransit contractor covers the FTA drug testing that work adds.

How a NEMT company gets Indiana County MATP trips

1. Get PUC paratransit authority and clear every driver. No paid ride may run before the certificate is issued. rabbittransit’s DHS agreement makes it collect proof of each subcontracted driver’s child abuse and criminal history clearances at hire and check every provider and driver against the federal exclusion list.
2. Call IndiGO’s main office. Reach it at 724-465-2140 or 1-800-442-6928, or at 1657 Saltsburg Avenue, Indiana. Ask who manages MATP subcontracts, which towns and which out-of-county days are short of vehicles, and how many wheelchair seats it needs.
3. Go to a board meeting. IndiGO’s board meets at 9 a.m. at its main office and allows 15 minutes of public comment. The rest of the 2026 schedule is Wednesday, October 28 and Monday, December 7, and agendas post on its site, so watch for MATP items.
4. Get the rate terms in writing. Since IndiGO’s April 2025 board agenda listed a mileage increase for its MATP subcontractors, ask whether the rate is paid per mile, per trip, or both, and when it is reset. See subcontracting NEMT trips for the invoicing and liability terms to settle.
5. Confirm what rabbittransit requires. Its agreement says every transportation contract or subcontract must carry the minimum terms in the MATP Standards and Guidelines, and it tells rabbittransit to use competitive procurement whenever possible. The rabbittransit guide lists those terms.
6. Serve the health plans as well. MATP excludes stretcher and non-emergency ambulance rides, which go to the rider’s HealthChoices plan. Indiana is in the Southwest zone, where UPMC for You sends wheelchair van and ambulance requests through UPMC Medical Transportation at 1-877-521-7433.

Nearby counties

Cambria County has used the same two-layer design since April 1, 2025, with rabbittransit administering and CamTran booking and driving with its own contracted carriers. Indiana MATP riders also travel on set days to Allegheny, Westmoreland, Armstrong, Jefferson, and Clearfield counties, so a carrier based in one of them can ask IndiGO about those runs.