You're the planner, the grant writer, and the NTD reporter. Here's your staff.

Running a rural or small-urban system means carrying a city-sized compliance load with no planner on payroll: the state DOT's data requests eat your evenings, the NTD rural report sneaks up every year, the county board wants proof the service matters, and the 5339 application loses to the county that hired a consultant. HeadwayForge does the analyst work. Fleet-age and useful-life charts come straight from your NTD vehicle inventory — the core exhibit of a bus-replacement grant. You finally get a map of your own service area's demographics, plus peer comparisons that show supervisors where you stand. The AI knowledge layer answers questions the way you'd ask a colleague — "what's the local match for 5339(c) and when is the FY26 NOFO due?" — with citations, so there's no software to "learn." And it's priced and billed for how counties actually buy: $7,500 a year sits inside most small-purchase thresholds, and we take a PO and invoice on net-30 just like every other vendor your auditor already understands. A subscription like this is commonly treated as an eligible §5311 admin or planning expense — confirm specifics with your state program manager.