SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. – Seminole County’s on-demand transportation service, SCOUT, has reached a significant milestone — six months on the road — and the numbers tell a story of rapid growth alongside real growing pains.
SCOUT fully launched Oct. 15, 2025, a brand new micro-transit transportation service designed to take riders door-to-door rather than bus stop to bus stop. Since then, 133,342 passengers have booked rides, according to Seminole County.
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Seminole County Commissioner Amy Lockhart says the ridership numbers have exceeded all expectations.
“We are moving about a thousand people a day on SCOUT throughout Seminole County, and we’re pretty confident that that hasn’t been done before,” Lockhart said.
News 6 has tested the transportation service multiple times since it launched after hearing feedback about long wait times. In December, rider Timothy Hamilton said he uses SCOUT to commute to work in Sanford. He said wait times, while sometimes unpredictable, have been manageable for the most part.
“Sometimes, like early in the morning, it might say 60 minutes, but it’s just telling me that. They probably wait, like 30, 30 minutes the longest,” Hamilton said.
The average wait time so far in April is still less than an hour — at 51 minutes, according to Seminole County. Data requested by News 6 shows wait times peaked at 60 minutes on both April 7 and April 9 and dipped below average to 48 minutes on April 10.
Reaching riders who never had access before
Seminole County maintains that although SCOUT operates like a rideshare service, it was never meant to replace rideshare apps operated by private companies like Uber or Lyft. It was launched to replace most fixed-route bus service — and in doing so, it has unlocked transportation access for a whole new group of Seminole County residents.
“I don’t think we ever envisioned it being as popular a system as it is because, as you know, this was not meant to be a replacement for Uber or Lyft. This was merely a replacement for those fixed route bus services on our major corridors in Seminole County,” Lockhart said. “So, it’s created a whole new market and a whole new group of people that now have access to transportation that never had it before.”
By analyzing heatmaps and rider data, the county says large numbers of people in areas that never had a LYNX bus route are now using SCOUT regularly.
Lockhart says one group stands out above the rest.
“A lot of them are seniors. They’re seniors who either had an inability or maybe felt uncomfortable getting to a LYNX bus stop and riding on a large public transit bus,” she said. “So they have the ability to stay in their homes. They have a known driver and rider/co-rider experience that they maybe feel a little more confident in, where they’re being picked up and where they’re being dropped off.”
SCOUT vs. the old bus system: How do the numbers compare?
Comparing SCOUT to the former service offered through the LYNX bus system is not a perfect apples-to-apples comparison.
LYNX ridership data includes transfers, meaning a single rider could be counted multiple times during one trip if they changed buses along the way. SCOUT data is more direct: each trip represents one ride, booked by one customer, from origin to destination.
With that context in mind, data provided by Seminole County shows LYNX recorded 9,991 rides during the first week of November 2025 on the routes that were later discontinued. Today, SCOUT regularly sees more than 900 trips per day — roughly 6,000 - 6,500 trips per week — and each of those trips reflects a complete, point-to-point journey.
“What started us down this path was realizing that the way that we were delivering public transportation to Seminole County residents was completely financially unsustainable,” Lockhart said. “There was no way, given the projected increases from the Central Florida Transportation Authority, that we could continue to do that.”
After going through a request for proposals process, the county selected Freebee, the private company that now implements and operates SCOUT throughout Seminole County.
Scaling up to meet demand
By this summer, the fleet will add 7 more vehicles — bringing the total to 49. Lockhart says the expansion is a direct response to the demand.
“We had no idea that the demand would be as great as it is, because so many people who were not riding LYNX buses have decided they want to try SCOUT,” Lockhart said. “We are moving thousands and thousands of more people in Seminole County who never had access to transportation before.”
Addressing criticism head-on
SCOUT has not been without criticism. Long wait times and service inconsistencies have drawn rider complaints, but Lockhart says the county is taking that feedback seriously — even tracking it on social media.
“We are taking every piece of feedback, criticism, praise, whatever form it comes in very seriously,” Lockhart said. “Our team is reaching out to them to find out exactly what happened, why and how do we fix that? How do we improve that experience?”
In January, the county launched a Wait Time Planner, so riders can check estimated pick up wait times before booking.
The county says Freebee has also made modifications to the SCOUT app to improve route planning. A new auto-pair feature works behind the scenes to better connect riders with nearby drivers — a change the county hopes will translate into a smoother experience for passengers county-wide.
“We’re still tweaking and making changes, and we hope everyone sees continued improvement,” Lockhart said.