Monroe County MATP in Pennsylvania: How the Pocono Pony Runs Medical Assistance Rides

In Monroe County, the Medical Assistance Transportation Program (MATP) runs through the Monroe County Transportation Authority (MCTA), which riders know as the Pocono Pony. From its base in Swiftwater, the same agency runs the county’s buses, its shared ride vans, and an app-booked van service. MCTA drives most MATP trips in its own vans, so an outside company’s opening is the smaller set of trips it pays others to carry or does not schedule at all.

Pennsylvania arranges its Medical Assistance rides county by county, and a company paid to carry riders needs Public Utility Commission (PUC) paratransit authority first. The Pennsylvania guide explains that authority and the statewide trip rules.

Who runs MATP in Monroe County

Monroe County’s commissioners appointed MCTA’s first board in the fall of 1979, and its first bus ran on October 15, 1979. MCTA took over the county’s shared ride program from the Area Agency on Aging in 1997 and began serving persons with disabilities in 2006. The state’s June 25, 2026 broker study counts Monroe among 38 county vendor programs, where a vendor, usually a transit agency, handles both the rides and the paperwork while the county oversees it. See what the study found.

MCTA’s MATP report for the year ended June 30, 2025, dated December 11, 2025, shows $638,215 spent and the same amount received from the Department of Human Services, so the program broke even. MCTA’s audited statements say MATP runs seven days a week as needed, while shared ride runs Monday to Friday and fixed route buses Monday to Saturday.

PennDOT’s fiscal 2024-25 report counts 83,039 MCTA shared ride trips. MATP riders took 12,149 of them, about one trip in seven:

Program	Trips, fiscal 2024-25
Riders 65 and older (Lottery)	34,569
Other shared ride	23,636
MATP	12,149
Persons with Disabilities	10,438
ADA paratransit	2,247
All shared ride trips	83,039

The same report puts MCTA’s average shared ride cost at $38.04 a trip and its average fare at $27.64, with 32 vehicles in peak shared ride service across 608 square miles. MCTA’s statements count 37,122 vehicle revenue hours and 781,749 revenue miles for shared ride in fiscal 2025, a total that includes its app-booked and flex services.

How a Monroe rider gets a ride

• Enrolling. The rider mails an application with a copy of their Medical Assistance card to PO Box 339, Scotrun, or faxes it to 570-839-8205. MCTA usually processes it within 72 hours.
• Choosing the mode. MCTA staff pick the most cost effective option: a fixed route bus, mileage at 25 cents a mile for riders with a car, or a shared ride van for riders three quarters of a mile or more from a route.
• Booking. Before noon on the business day before, and up to 14 business days ahead, with in-county first pickups between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. when possible. Medical Assistance riders can check or cancel trips online through Find My Ride but cannot book there yet.
• Pickup. A 30-minute pickup window, 15 minutes either side of the scheduled time. The rider boards within 5 minutes, and the driver waits no longer than that grace period.
• Cancelling. At least two hours ahead. A van that arrives outside the window counts as MCTA’s missed trip, not the rider’s no-show.
• Where the van stops. At the curb nearest the rider’s unit or an apartment complex’s main lobby, and nearest the main lobby entrance of a medical building. Help to and from the door is decided case by case.
• Wheelchairs. MCTA carries a chair and rider when the lift or ramp can take them, up to 34 by 50 inches and 600 pounds including the rider and bags, with four-point securement. See wheelchair securement.

What MCTA pays others to drive

Most MATP money stays inside the authority. MCTA’s PennDOT revenue schedule for fiscal 2025 shows $477,783 of MATP funding paying fares on its own shared ride vans.

The outside spending is small. MCTA’s audited statements show $89,368 of purchased transportation in fiscal 2023, $100,533 in fiscal 2024, and $74,015 in fiscal 2025. Its PennDOT expense schedule for fiscal 2025 books $74,014 as a separate MATP expense, outside the totals for its own buses and vans.

MCTA is adding its own capacity too. Capital purchases that began in fiscal 2024 include ten 14-passenger cutaway shared ride vehicles, and the board heard on March 26, 2026 that the new shared ride buses were on the road. Its fiscal 2025 report says MCTA is preparing to offer Saturday shared ride service and bringing back the out-of-county medical trips it ran before COVID.

Out-of-county trips

MCTA’s schedule, updated in June 2026, takes Monroe riders out of the county on set days, for appointments between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. only: Allentown and Bethlehem on Monday, Wilkes-Barre on Tuesday, Bethlehem and Easton on Wednesday, and Scranton on Wednesday and Thursday. No out-of-county run goes on Friday.

A rider whose specialist is in Scranton on a Monday, in Allentown on a Thursday, or anywhere at 3 p.m. falls outside this schedule. That is a fair question to put to MCTA if you run long distance medical trips.

Shared ride fares since October 1, 2026

The MCTA board’s September 24, 2026 agenda carried a public hearing on a shared ride fare increase and Resolution 2026-7, raising shared ride fares effective October 1, 2026, and MCTA’s fare chart lists the new fares from that date. A full fare now runs from $23 for a trip under 4 miles to $63 for more than 30 miles, up from $20 and $55. Seniors and riders with disabilities pay a co-pay instead:

Distance	Full fare	Senior co-pay	Disabilities co-pay
0 to 4 miles	$23	$1.50	$3.45
4 to 8 miles	$26	$2.50	$3.90
8 to 12 miles	$30	$2.50	$4.50
12 to 16 miles	$36	$2.75	$5.40
16 to 20 miles	$42	$3.00	$6.30
20 to 30 miles	$52	$3.50	$7.80
Over 30 miles	$63	$8.50	$9.45

On out-of-county runs, riders pay by the miles from pickup to destination. Two other services carry riders who might otherwise pay a full fare. Care Connects, running since October 2, 2023 on a Sanofi grant with the Pocono Mountains United Way, takes residents who qualify for no other program to medical appointments and pharmacies inside Monroe County. PonyPlus, launched August 1, 2022 and still $2 a trip as of October 2026, is an app-booked van in the Delaware Water Gap, East Stroudsburg, and Stroudsburg area and the Pocono Summit and Mount Pocono area, weekdays from 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. If you price private pay rides, those are the numbers riders will compare you to.

Stretcher rides and the HealthChoices plans

The rider’s HealthChoices plan, not MATP, handles stretcher and non-emergency ambulance trips, and Monroe is in the Northeast zone with four plans: AmeriHealth Caritas Pennsylvania, Geisinger Health Plan, Jefferson Health Plans EverWell, and UPMC for You. AmeriHealth Caritas Pennsylvania’s 2026 member handbook says it is responsible for those trips and that MATP may refer them to the plan. UPMC for You’s provider manual, updated December 31, 2025, has providers in this zone arrange ground ambulance and wheelchair van trips through UPMC Medical Transportation at 1-877-521-7433. If you carry heavier riders, see bariatric transportation.

How to get MATP work in Monroe County

1. Get PUC authority for Monroe. The PUC sets your territory by the counties where your trips start, and changing it later takes a new application and fee. Name Monroe and any neighbor you plan to serve in the first filing.
2. Read MCTA’s purchase terms. Its Doing Business page says every purchase follows FTA and PennDOT rules and posts its terms and conditions and protest procedures. The terms let MCTA ask a seller working on its premises for proof of public liability, auto liability, property damage, and workers’ compensation coverage. The board approved revision 4 of its procurement manual on February 19, 2026, and its DBE program office points small, minority, and women-owned firms to technical help.
3. Call the shared ride manager at 570-839-6282. Ask what the $74,015 of purchased transportation paid for, who carries MATP trips on weekends, how out-of-county requests off the schedule are handled, and what happens when a chair is bigger than 34 by 50 inches or heavier than 600 pounds. Before you quote a price, read how to subcontract NEMT trips.
4. Follow the MCTA board. It generally meets at 5:30 p.m. on the last Thursday of the month at the administrative office in Swiftwater, in person and on Zoom. The remaining 2026 meetings are October 29, November 19, and December 17. Written comments of up to 300 words on items not on the agenda go by email before 4:30 p.m. on the meeting day.
5. Ask the Northeast zone plans how they buy the stretcher and ambulance trips MATP refers to them.

Nearby, Lackawanna County runs MATP through COLTS and Luzerne County through LCTA. Carbon and Northampton counties book through LANTA Van, covered on the Lehigh County page. Pike County and Wayne County drive MATP riders with their own county departments.