In October of last year, GoBG Transit completed an overhaul of its brand in an effort to increase ridership following a decline in usage during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

The public transit service subsequently has seen a monthly increase of 8% in usage, something GoBG General Manager Tim McWhorter said was long overdue.

“The best way to get people aware of the service is to do more of a marketing campaign with social media and television and to rebrand the buses to get them more noticeable to the public,” McWhorter said.

The new designs added green wrappings on body panels of several buses.

McWhorter said the first “green bus” was unveiled last year at Bowling Green’s Harvest Fest, and GoBG now runs three buses wrapped in green.

“We’re also noticing more traffic on our social media pages and website as well, which is good,” he said. “More folks are learning about the service and we’re able to get that information out to all members of the community.”

Routes have not changed, although McWhorter said GoBG is eyeing a transit study to find out where the service can expand its reach. He said the study is set to begin around August this year and will include a “realignment study.”

“As communities change, sometimes we just have to make sure that our bus routes are serving the area where the folks needed the most,” he said.

GoBG was formerly managed by Community Action of Southern Kentucky, which first gained a contract with the city of Bowling Green to run the service in 2003. In 2020, the managerial duties were awarded to national firm RATP Dev, which now also manages Western Kentucky University’s public transportation service.

Brent Childers, director of Neighborhood and Community Services for the city, said GoBG is starting to “find more rhythm” following the change.

“Anytime you make a change of that size, there’s some time to kind of get everything reestablished,” Childers said. “We’re finding that rhythm.”

Although GoBG and WKU’s transit system are both operated by RATP Dev, Childers said there are no plans yet to completely combine the two systems into one comprehensive service.

“There is no ‘hey, on this date is when we swap,’ there’s none of that,” Childers said. “At this point, it’s just an idea. They’re still two completely independent systems.”

Childers said a combination of GoBG Transit and WKU Transit would be difficult because the two services are “incongruent” in their objectives, funding and even the vehicles they use.

“(WKU is) talking about big, heavy diesel buses and we’re talking about truck chassis,” Childers said. “While there is an opportunity to have this conversation down the line, there’s a whole host of complications.”