Employees can take advantage of public transport, avoid paying for gas and parking, and be green thanks to a benefit provided by UF Health Shands.

UF Health Shands partners with Gainesville Regional Transit System, or RTS, to provide staff with free bus rides. UF faculty and staff with Gator 1 cards also ride fare-free. From October 2016 to September 2017 alone, UF Health Shands employees rode the bus more than 100,000 times.

One of our frequent riders is Colleen Counsell, M.S.N., R.N., UF Health Shands Cancer Hospital Trauma/Lung Transplant Unit 5 West nurse manager, who takes the bus to work every day.

“I have taken the bus since UF Health Shands Hospital began providing free rides as a benefit,” she said, referring to when the program began in 2009. “It is an excellent opportunity, and I have completely eliminated parking fees and driving costs by using it.”

Saving time and money on the way to work isn’t the only way that free bus rides can help employees, according to Counsell.

“I also use the benefit for personal trips like going to the gym or to the grocery store,” she said. “I have met an incredible group of friends that ride regularly.”

The bus schedules have varying frequency that allow employees to plan their arrival to and from work and home. Check out the RTS stops and routes online at GO-RTS.com, enroll in the RTS email list or view schedules through the TransLoc app, which enables users to track RTS buses in real time. (The TransLoc app also shows our UF Health Shands shuttle bus services.)

Another RTS rider, David S. Estores Jr., M.D., a UF College of Medicine associate professor of medicine and director of endoscopy, rides the bus three times a week.

“It allows me to have a more productive workday by giving me extra time to look over paperwork in the morning,” Estores said. “This is a very valuable service to employees here at UF Health.”