In her month as one of eight drivers for the city’s new NRoute bus system, Maxine Davenport has built a small but loyal group of regular riders.

Among them is Terrance Granberry, an employee at Horizon Casino who goes to work too early – 2 a.m. – to catch a bus, but does get on board Davenport’s route whenever possible when he gets off, at 10 a.m.

&#8220I ride it every morning,” he said. &#8220There are nice people on the bus. I may have even found a girlfriend on the bus.”

Not all have had Granberry’s fortune, but since the transit system began charging fares on July 3, Davenport’s fan base has followed the upward trend of NRoute numbers as a whole, in her case up to about 12 to 15 paying customers per day. Most of those are regulars who catch the bus to work and shop for groceries, she said.

&#8220It’s been fine. They enjoy me, and I enjoy them,” Davenport said. &#8220A few have bought monthly passes.”

The system, funded by grants with fares expected to pay 10 percent of operating expenses, rolled out June 26. After drawing 632 riders during a fare-free promotion, passengers fell to 214 people over the next five days, which included in the Independence Day holiday, said NRoute Director Evelyn Bumpers.

The next week’s tally rose 347 people and the county was up to 388 last week.

In all, passengers have made 1,581 trips on NRoute buses, 949 of them paid at a base fare of $1.50 with half-off for seniors and monthly passes as an option.

&#8220We’re getting new customers every week,” Bumpers said. &#8220As soon as they learn the system, I think you’ll see it start to pick up every week.”

Mayor Laurence Leyens has said the system has funds to run for at least three years, most of which he hopes will be governed by an independent transit authority separate from the city. In the meantime, officials will continue to look at tweaking routes and schedules to get more people on board, and at adding shelters that clearly identify some of the stops.

&#8220We’re probably going to look at that here in the next couple weeks to see if we’re going to make any adjustments,” he said. &#8220Maybe we need to adjust some times or some stop areas…I’m hoping too we’ll have the shelters in before long.”

Projections in 2005 were that the system would cost $700,000 annually to run with $71,000 derived from fares. At the $1.50 fare, that calculates to about 4,500 riders per month. The first month hit 35 percent of that number.

Currently, the city runs seven routes with 8 to 11 regular stops per route from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday.

&#8220I’m a senior citizen on a fixed income, so it helps me out a whole lot,” said Dorothy Griffin, 64, who catches Davenport’s bus three or four days a week to go grocery shopping and run other errands. &#8220And she drops me right back off at my apartment, so I don’t have to walk at all.”

In addition to city, county, state and federal tax funds, NRoute has donations from area businesses and revenue from advertising signs inside the buses.

It was more than a decade between NRoute’s June 26 launch and Vicksburg’s last effort at public transportation, a system of downtown trolleys 11 years ago, which cost about $120,000 and did not catch on. In its history, the city has been served by horse-drawn carts, electric trolleys and conventional buses. The last bus system shut down in the 1960s.

Six of the 20-seat, wheelchair-accessible Ford E-450 buses were bought from Starcraft Bus of Birmingham, Ala., with a $488,000 federal grant. The Board of Mayor and Aldermen voted to amend its budget in April, adding $181,550 into the bus fund and authorizing spending $237,790 to get the system running. The remaining $250,000 went into the general fund to be apportioned for other projects.

The decision to seek the grants and commit local funds followed a Chamber of Commerce study assuring the buses were needed, especially in census tracts with double-digit unemployment rates and fewer personal vehicles. Bumpers, a veteran of one of the state’s other four municipally run transit systems in Meridian, was hired to head the project locally.