Eight UMR students this semester are working with Bill Ankner, director of the Missouri Transportation Institute at UMR, to develop a business plan for a public transit system for Interstate 44. The study, funded by a $70,000 grant from the Missouri Department of Transportation, will focus on the project's feasibility and help officials determine the best way to run a commuter shuttle bus service from Fort Leonard Wood to Rolla and Lebanon.

“If it looks like there isn’t the market for this to work, and it looks like this will fail, we will tell you," Ankner said. “But at this point, all indicators are it will be positive."

Farther down the road, the commuter shuttle bus might become part of a federal test program to determine the viability of hydrogen rather than traditional motor fuels, using an existing MoDOT garage near Fort Leonard Wood’s main gate as a hydrogen fuel cell facility.

“What UMR and (the Missouri Transportation Institute) are saying is, if we get this transit system up and running, to use this system as the test site for hydrogen technology," Ankner said, noting that the federal government doesn’t yet have any rural test sites for a hydrogen fuel program.

Read more about the project in the Waynesville Daily Guide.