GRTC will ring in the new year with service improvements on four routes, including the Pulse rapid-transit line.

The regional transit company’s biggest change involves Route 1A, a Route 1-Midlothian Turnpike line that currently stops at the former Spring Rock Green shopping center just across the city line with Chesterfield County.

Effective Sunday, Jan. 14, the 1A will be extended eight miles into the county into the job-rich areas that include Johnston-Willis Hospital, office parks, retail operations and restaurants as well as Chesterfield Towne Center and the Walmart and Sam’s Club just a bit further that will be the end of the line.

This will be GRTC’s furthest penetration of this corridor, which now has a separate line, 2B, that reaches to Centura College at Buford Road.

According to GRTC spokesman Henry Bendon, the extended 1A will offer 30-minute service from 6 a.m. to 1 a.m. on six days and to 11:30 pm. on Sundays and have 27 bus stops, with 13 outgoing and 14 returning from Walmart Way.

A state grant and county funds are providing $2.35 million to cover planning and first-year costs of providing the added service without charge to riders.

Pulse service, which was reduced during the pandemic, also will be fully restored on Jan. 14, with 10-minute service between 6 a.m. and 11:30 p.m. on weekdays and 15-minute service Saturdays and Sundays during that same time frame. Service after 11:30 pm. would be every 30 minutes as has been the case since the rapid-transit line went into service in June 2018.

Separately on Jan. 14, GRTC will speed up service on Route 19 that runs from Willow Lawn where the Pulse stops and Short Pump Town Center in Henrico County.

Mr. Bendon said the route now has service every 30 minutes, but will start running buses every 15 minutes along that line between 5 a.m. and 7 p.m. daily and also extend service a mile or so to the Sheltering Arms-VCU Health operation on Wilkes Ridge Road in Goochland County.

Also on Jan. 14, GRTC will increase service on Route 91, the Laburnum connector that extends from White Oak Village shopping mall to Williamsburg Road and primarily runs on Laburnum Avenue.

Currently, service is hourly, Mr. Bendon said, but after the change, the service will be every 30 minutes.

These are among new steps GRTC is taking to improve service.

In November, the company began a test of micro-transit program that allows people in the Azalea Avenue area of the city and Henrico to call a van to take them from their home to their bus stop.

In 2024, other changes will include expanding the 1 line to Parham and Brook roads and expanding micro-transit.

The changes are being ushered as GRTC continues to report growth in passenger numbers and greater success in hiring drivers.

GRTC also has reported fending off a ransomeware attack that hit computers in government and government-related entities across the country as well as some credit unions.

The attack from a Russian hacking group called Play happened just after Thanksgiving, GRTC has confirmed, but the regional transit company stated that the disruption to GRTC’s computers was temporary as its information technology staff “quickly restored our computer network.”

Other Central Virginia entities that have dealt with disruption from the hackers in- clude the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) based in Richmond and Vantage Point Credit Union in Hopewell.

The attacks have been linked to a since repaired flaw in a software called Citrix that allows employees to remotely access a company’s computers.