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Table 6:
HOW TO GENERATE PROVIDER/PROGRAM COST SAVINGS
Possible
Typical Percent Change in this
of Total Category's
Cost Category System Cost Probable Effect of Coordination Percent Cost
Drivers' salaries 35 Reduces total number of drivers -20
Drivers drive more hours, are more +10 to 25
skilled, and earn higher wages
Less input from volunteer drivers +10 to 20
Administrative 15 Frees agency heads from transportation -10
salaries hours
Requires hiring a professional +20?
transportation director
Dispatcher and 6 Reduces total number of dispatchers and -25
bookkeeper bookkeepers needed
salaries
Gasoline, oil, and 16 Joint purchasing reduces prices; -15
tires coordinated system may receive special
tax advantages
Capital expenses 12 Reduces total need for vehicles, radios, -25
and computers
Insurance 4.5 Standardizes rates for service but +25
changes rate class to a higher risk level
Maintenance 8 Eliminates duplication and -25
underutilization of space, tools, and
personnel
Other costs 3.5 Saves on rent and office equipment -25
Chapter 2 Coordination Details: Benefits, Costs, and Barriers 29
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The Economic Benefits of Mobility
Transportation's mission has been succinctly expressed as follows:
"Transportation is necessary to support overall economic growth and
activity in the national economy, but it also is expected to serve other
goals of the community, support the desires of those who use its
services, and do all this with the least expenditure of scarce resources"
(Fuller, 2000). These other goals that transportation is expected to
address include an extremely wide range, such as "facilitate welfare
reform, narrow regional wealth or opportunity disparities, manage
growth, and help produce more livable cities or neighborhoods,"
accomplishing these as it "provides employment, facilitates changed
land uses, links businesses and employees, broadens distribution,
enhances recreation, and in short is called upon to put in place the
agenda of every political body" (Fuller, 2000).
Coordination's typical service improvements make significant increases
to the mobility of transportation system users. Typical service
improvements that result from coordination include the following:
Lowered trip costs for travelers and for human services
We need to recognize agencies;
that some service Extended service hours;
limitations may still
Services to new areas or new communities and to more people;
exist, even with
More trips made by persons needing transportation;
coordination.
Services more responsive to schedules, points of origin, and
destinations of customers;
Greater emphasis on safety and customer service;
More door-to-door service; and
More flexible payment and service options.
We need to recognize that some service limitations may still exist, even
with coordination. Customers may have to preschedule their trips 24
hours or more in advance, and they may have to register with the
service provider before being eligible to request trips. Some coordinated
systems do not offer trips to all persons but only to those who meet
certain qualifications, even though that approach runs contrary to most
understandings about coordination.
30 Basic Coordination Concepts SECTION I
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When such service improvements occur, mobility increases and
substantial benefits result. The American Public Transportation
Association (APTA) reports that the major benefits from transit
investments include mobility benefits, efficiency benefits, economic
development benefits, and economic productivity benefits. Overall, the
ratio of benefits to public costs is said to range between 4:1 and 5:1
(APTA, 1998). A study found that rural public transportation services
provide large economic benefits for their communities (Burkhardt,
Hedrick, and McGavock, 1998), demonstrating that personal
transportation services are a good investment for rural The American Public
communities. The kinds of benefits that rural transit systems generate Transportation
for their communities include the following:
Association reports that
With access to jobs, workers get better jobs and there is reduced
the major benefits from
unemployment; transit investments
include mobility
Riders become (and stay) more independent with better access to
health care, welfare, and shopping; benefits, efficiency
Riders can shop where costs are lower; benefits, economic
development benefits,
Riders save on their travel costs when using transit;
and economic
Local businesses increase their level of activity, more money is
spent locally, and new businesses and visitors are attracted to the
productivity benefits.
community; and
Communities benefit by the best use of their unique
environments.
Added to such benefits are the wages paid to transit employees, the
costs of goods and services the transit system purchases locally, and the
multiplier effects of wages and system purchases in the local economy.
Achieving these goals can create returns on investment of greater than
3:1 for rural communities, as shown by both national and local analyses.
HOW TO USE
COORDINATION'S BENEFITS
The uses of the benefits of coordination are highly significant. Some
communities will choose to apply coordination's benefits in one way,
while others will opt for different strategies. If there are cost savings on
a unit cost basis (which is possible but does not always occur)--that is,
cost per trip, per mile, or per hour--the savings from these greater
Chapter 2 Coordination Details: Benefits, Costs, and Barriers 31
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efficiencies can be used to serve more passengers. This is basically the
approach used by the vast majority of communities simply because the
transportation service in most communities serves only a fraction of the
total travel needed. The most frequent use of these coordination benefits
is the expansion of service to previously unserved portions of the
The transportation community, to previously unserved client types, or to previously
unserved hours and days.
service in most
communities serves To be sure, it is possible that some agencies will actually save money
only a fraction of the through coordination. Since these cases are rare, they are notable. To a
total travel needed. large extent, monetary savings have been the result of the use of
programs such as transit passes to serve Medicaid clients needing
frequent trips. Transit passes cost only a fraction of comparable
paratransit trips; the Medicaid program saves money, the transit agency
receives more revenue (at essentially zero cost increases), and the
Medicaid clients receive additional mobility. Lee County, North
Carolina, (CTAA, 1994) and Sweetwater County, Wyoming,
(Burkhardt, 2000) are examples of cases where all participating
agencies paid less on a per-trip basis after coordination, and some
actually paid less in total for their trips after services were coordinated
(but some agencies simply purchased more trips for the same or even
increased levels of expenditure).
Coordination . . . may THE COSTS OF COORDINATION
be initially more
expensive, more Coordination has its costs. It may be initially more expensive, more
difficult, and more time consuming to achieve than most interested
difficult, and more time stakeholders expect. Coordination may increase overall cost
consuming to achieve effectiveness or reduce unit costs (for example, costs per trip), but may
than most interested not necessarily make transportation dollars available for other activities.
While some agencies have hoped to see money returned to them, this
stakeholders expect. has seldom happened because any cost savings realized are most often
devoted to addressing the many unmet travel needs found in most rural
(and urban) communities. Also, coordination agreements can unravel
over time, so that constant attention is necessary to ensure that all
parties keep working together. Coordination depends on mutual trust,
respect, and goodwill among all parties involved, so long-standing
coordination arrangements can be jeopardized if antagonistic or self-
serving individuals become involved in transportation activities.
32 Basic Coordination Concepts SECTION I
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FACTORS THAT INHIBIT COORDINATION
An oft-heard complaint from local transportation operators is that they
would like to coordinate their services with those of other providers, but
they are "prohibited," or otherwise unable to do what makes sense to
them by "barriers" in the legislation or regulations of programs through
which they receive funding. On the other hand, many local operators
have succeeded in coordinating the transportation resources of various
Federal and state-funded programs. They have done so by working Obstacles that have
through the same administrative, interpersonal, and institutional
troubled some
obstacles that other operators have found more difficult to surmount.
individuals and
In short, this means that obstacles for some operations have not been operations have not
barriers for others operations. Why is this? It is apparently due to the been barriers to others.
nature of coordination, part of which involves stepping out into the
unknown territories of other persons' interests and jurisdictions. This is
an obvious challenge. To be successful, coordination also requires many
other traits. Among these are a substantial amount of knowledge about
possible approaches to coordination, a willingness to learn new
information, and the flexibility and confidence to work cooperatively
along paths that are only defined as one proceeds along the journey. The
case studies in this Toolkit should provide the information and
inspiration needed to implement successful coordinated rural
transportation systems.
Much work has been devoted to investigating the issue of barriers to
coordinated transportation. Because some persons have succeeded in
implementing coordinated systems, it is now clear that many
coordination efforts have been slowed or halted by perceived rather
than actual barriers. Certainly, coordination requires lots of effort. But it It is now clear that
may be more accurate to say that, while there are hindrances or
many coordination
challenges, there are seldom actual barriers that cannot be overcome no
matter what. efforts have been
slowed or halted by
During hearings in 1975, the U.S. Senate became concerned about the perceived rather than
lack of coordination of human service transportation and commissioned
a review by the General Accounting Office (GAO) which resulted in a actual barriers.
detailed 1977 report to the Comptroller General of the United States,
Hindrances to Coordinating Transportation of People Participating in
Federally Funded Grant Programs (GAO, 1977). In this review, the
Chapter 2 Coordination Details: Benefits, Costs, and Barriers 33
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GAO identified 114 Federal programs that provided transportation. (In
a new report, GAO identified 62 Federal programs--most of which are
administered by the Departments of Health and Human Services,
Labor, Education, and Transportation--that fund transportation
services for the transportation-disadvantaged [GAO, 2003]). The 1977
report could not identify any specific legislative or regulatory
restrictions on coordination, but it did point out a number of
"hindrances." Many of the hindrances were inherent in the
categorical nature of Federal grant programs. Problems in
coordinating transportation services for multiple client groups often
stem from the incompatibilities or perceived incompatibilities in
program purposes or services for the members of these different client
groups. After some substantial efforts in investigating this issue of
barriers, it is clear that many operators are responding to perceived
rather than actual barriers. Issues that have been described as
hindrances in the past include the following:
Problems in dealing with the various requirements of a large
variety of Federal funding programs;
Not being certain that coordination is allowed or authorized;
Problems with accountability, cost allocation, paperwork, and
reporting;
Funding issues including matching requirements for Federal
funds, funding cycles, and lack of sufficient funding;
Perceived incompatibility of goals, needs, or client eligibility;
All of these hindrances
or challenges have Expectations of no significant benefits from coordinated
been addressed and operations;
resolved in one Regulatory requirements (such as prohibitions on crossing local
community or another. or state boundaries); and
Lack of concerted Federal effort to encourage or require
coordination (GAO, 1977; HEW, 1976).
In addition, some agencies and individuals are not familiar with the
concept of "fully allocated resource costs" of transportation services.
Another hindrance has been the inability of others to address issues of
service quality. All of these hindrances or challenges have been
addressed and resolved in one community or another.
34 Basic Coordination Concepts SECTION I
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REQUIREMENTS OF FEDERAL
FUNDING PROGRAMS
Many Federal programs offer funds that could be used for coordinated
transportation services in rural communities. Some persons view this
fact as a problem; in reality, having multiple funding sources is
probably a real strength. The popularity of various Federal programs
waxes and wanes over time, particularly within Congress, where
funding decisions are made. Still, having to work with a variety of rules Having to work with a
and regulations from different funding sources certainly adds a level of variety of rules and
complexity to coordination tasks.
regulations from
different funding
sources certainly adds
No Overall Coordination Restrictions
a level of complexity to
There has been a misperception that categorical funding "does not coordination tasks.
permit" the sharing of resources among client groups of different types.
Both the U.S. Departments of Transportation (DOT) and Health and
Human Services (HHS) have issued instructions that are clear on such
issues: as long as there is excess capacity and service is not being
denied to the primary client group, it is indeed possible to use vehicles
and other resources to serve a variety of client types, and it is possible
to have clients from different sponsoring agencies riding on vehicles at
the same time. If there are misperceptions about the possibilities of
resource sharing, these misperceptions should be relatively easy to
resolve with appropriate detailed information.
Restrictions within Specific Programs
There have been concerns about specific Federal programs concerning
legislation or regulations that make coordination much more difficult
than necessary (or that provide support to the views of those individuals
not ordinarily inclined to share resources and responsibilities). Most of
these issues have been successfully dealt with by the individual
agencies or the efforts of the Federal Coordinating Council on Access
and Mobility. There are still some issues that need further work; chief
among these are those relating to coordination with the Head Start and
Medicare programs (both of which are being addressed but need further
work before coordination obstacles are removed).
Chapter 2 Coordination Details: Benefits, Costs, and Barriers 35
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Head Start--The Head Start program accounts for a substantial part of
human service transportation nationwide. According to a 2000 survey
conducted by School Transportation News, Head Start provides daily
Head Start provides transportation to over 582,000 children across the country. Many of
daily transportation to these children receive transportation from coordinated transportation
systems, using either transit vehicles or agency vans. For many
over 582,000 children coordinated systems, such as the one found in Iowa, Head Start
across the country, transportation is a substantial part of the system. The Iowa Office of
many of whom Public Transit estimates that between 20 and 25 percent of the trips in
their statewide coordinated system are provided to Head Start clients. If
receive transportation these trips were lost, the consequences to their coordinated systems
from coordinated could be serious.
transportation systems
The Coordinating Council has been working with Head Start to ensure
that rural transportation systems will continue to be able to transport
Head Start children. A key issue is the issue of the types of vehicles that
are allowed to be used for transporting Head Start children.
Unless there is progress on manufacturing alternative vehicles or
modifying the Head Start regulations, all Head Start trips will have to
be provided with school buses starting in 2006. Since no transit
system or human service agency uses school buses, they will no
longer be able to provide Head Start trips. Current Head Start
regulations (45 CFR 1310.12) state that "Effective January 18, 2006,
each agency providing transportation services must ensure that
All Head Start trips will children enrolled in its programs are transported in school buses or
allowable alternative vehicles. . . ." Most transit agencies assume that
have to be provided "allowable alternative vehicles" include vans, buses, and other transit
with school buses or vehicles. That assumption is incorrect.
allowable alternative
The Head Start regulations clearly define an allowable alternative
vehicles starting vehicle as "a vehicle designed for carrying eleven or more people,
in 2006. including the driver, that meets all Federal Motor Vehicle Safety
Standards applicable to school buses, except 49 CFR 571.108 and
571.131." What are the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards
applicable to school buses? The Code of Federal Regulations Section
571 lists well over 100 very specific regulations and parameters for
school buses. These regulations and parameters go into extremely
minute detail in specifying nearly every component of a school bus,
such as window size, door size, door location, emergency exit handle
location, minimum tensile body joint strength, and rollover thresholds.
For example, Section 571.222.S.5.1.2, "Seat back height and surface
area," states that:
36 Basic Coordination Concepts SECTION I
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Each school bus passenger seat shall be equipped with a seat
back that, in the front projected view, has a front surface area
above the horizontal plane that passes through the seating
reference point, and below the horizontal plane 508 millimeters
above the seating reference point, of not less than 90 percent of
the seat bench width in millimeters multiplied by 508.
Transit vehicles may not be able to meet such standards for seat back Head Start sponsored
size or the equally specific standards for window size. Is there any a demonstration
possibility that these transit vehicles will comply with the rear door
program of alternative
regulations that specify door size down to the millimeter? Is it possible
that a transit agency will cut apart the body of one of its buses in order vehicles in North
to test the body joints? At the moment, it does not appear possible for Carolina.
any vehicle to meet these standards, other than a school bus (which was
designed to meet these standards). So unless rural transit and human
service agencies switch their fleets to school buses, their Head Start
contracts could expire in January 2006.
Head Start sponsored a demonstration program of alternative vehicles in
North Carolina. These vehicles may provide an option to permit
continued coordination between public transportation operators and the
Head Start program. Clearly, this is an outstanding issue of some
importance.
Medicare--The Medicare program, administered by the Centers for
Medicare & Medicaid Services of HHS is one of the key health care
programs in this country. This program has two distinct components:
hospital insurance (known as "Part A") and supplemental medical
insurance ("Part B"). Both programs provide insurance protection for
covered services for persons age 65 or older, certain persons with
disabilities, and individuals with chronic renal disease who elect this
coverage. Transportation costs are allowable expenses under Medicare
Part B, but serious restrictions apply. By statute and regulation,
Medicare will provide reimbursement only for transportation services Previous research has
provided by ambulances. Furthermore, the use of an ambulance is
limited to very severe medical situations such as a life-threatening questioned the
emergency or a bed-ridden patient. These restrictions unnecessarily "emergency" nature of
increase transportation costs and limit access to necessary health care. some Medicare
transportation now
Previous research has questioned the "emergency" nature of some
Medicare transportation now being provided. This is particularly true being provided.
for regularly scheduled dialysis trips for end-stage renal disease (ESRD)
patients. ESRD Medicare patients are especially likely to have a critical
Chapter 2 Coordination Details: Benefits, Costs, and Barriers 37
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need for transportation support to access life-extending dialysis
treatments. Such transportation problems are particularly severe in rural
areas, which often lack local dialysis facilities and may lack long-
distance transportation options to urban dialysis treatment centers.
Medicare patients seeking dialysis transportation via ambulance must
present a written order from their doctor stating that any other form of
transportation would be harmful to their health. Of course, in some parts
of the country, there may be no means of transportation except by
ambulance. Since missing dialysis treatments can lead to serious
medical problems, including death, it seems that some doctors are doing
whatever it takes to get their patients to dialysis, even if this entails
Research indicates bending some regulatory definitions of what entails an emergency.
that there are many
Research indicates that there are many nonemergency Medicare patients
nonemergency arriving at hospitals via ambulance. With Medicare ambulance
Medicare patients transportation costs approaching 2 billion dollars annually, Medicare's
insistence on ambulance transportation--instead of, for example, rural
arriving at hospitals
public transportation systems--appears to be creating unnecessarily
via ambulance. high costs. Research is now under way to examine the potential benefits
to the Medicare program of changes to their legislation that would
permit travel by services other than ambulances.
PROBLEMS WITH ACCOUNTABILITY,
COST ALLOCATION, PAPERWORK,
AND REPORTING
Rural transportation providers need detailed information to overcome
the following kinds of potential coordination obstacles:
The burdens imposed Program-by-program variations in eligibility for services;
by differing regulations Billing, accounting, recordkeeping, and reporting requirements;
and procedures can be Funding issues, including differing matching ratios and funding
quite expensive for cycles; and
local transportation Service regulations (such as prohibitions on crossing local or
operators. state boundaries).
While not constituting "barriers" that are impossible to surmount, the
burdens imposed by differing regulations and procedures can be quite
38 Basic Coordination Concepts SECTION I
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expensive for local transportation operators. Recently completed case Most of the commonly
studies showed that overall administrative accounting and reporting
identified obstacles or
burdens can be extremely expensive: 24 percent of all administrative
costs of the Pee Dee RTA in South Carolina are devoted to accounting barriers to coordination
and reporting; administrative costs account for 58 percent of the total have specific strategies
cost of Medicaid transportation provided by the Community Transit
service in York, Pennsylvania. to overcome them.
Most of the commonly identified obstacles or barriers to coordination
have specific strategies to overcome them. For example, problems of
billing and accounting, which used to consume vast amounts of
administrative staff resources for large coordinated transportation
services (like OATS in Missouri) are now handled with relative ease
because of the installation of computerized accounting systems (like
that used by Jefferson Area United Transportation System [JAUNT] in
Virginia) which allow detailed reporting to a wide variety of funding
sources. The issue of cost allocation can be resolved by working
through cost sharing arrangements in which all parties agree to certain
specific formulas for sharing.
OPERATIONAL CHALLENGES TO
COORDINATED TRANSPORTATION
In Chapter 8, local transportation providers describe the operational
challenges they have faced when trying to coordinate services in their
localities. These challenges were the following:
Funding,
Interpersonal relationships,
Political support and power sharing,
Lack of knowledge, and
Understanding coordination.
Excluding funding, these topics can be addressed through greater
understanding of coordination, including its likely benefits, costs,
challenges, and successes in similar communities. All of these topics are
covered in depth in this Toolkit.
Chapter 2 Coordination Details: Benefits, Costs, and Barriers 39
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administrative procedures for some Federal programs; therefore,
certain forms of coordination may be much easier for communities in
one state than they are for communities in another state. Differing
levels of resources are available for planning and operations from
state to state.
Despite many challenges, the overwhelming message is that many
persons have succeeded in establishing and maintaining
coordinated transportation services in rural communities. Take
heart in this message: success is possible, although it's seldom easy.
WILL COORDINATION REQUIRE THAT I
GIVE UP MY VEHICLES? CONTROL OVER
MY FUNDING FOR TRANSPORTATION?
THE WELFARE OF MY CLIENTS?
Coordination requires you to share authority, responsibility, and Coordination requires
resources (including funding), not to give them up. There are many
you to share authority,
administrative options for coordination, and many of them involve the
partners keeping ownership of vehicles, control over funding, and an responsibility, and
active involvement in the welfare of specific client groups. Indeed, this resources (including
maintenance of authority, responsibility, and resources could be
considered to be one of the hallmarks of coordination.
funding), not to give
them up.
On the other hand, consolidation of resources is a different approach to
maximizing cost-effectiveness. Consolidation often means that only one
agency owns vehicles and controls costs. Even in a consolidated
operation, agencies that contract for services with the unified
transportation provider would ideally remain in a strong and vital
advisory position regarding overall service policies, and they should
certainly remain as energetic advocates for the needs and welfare of
their own clients. Consolidation will be an effective management
strategy in some rural communities, but it may diminish the direct
involvement of some agencies in operating decisions regarding
transportation services.
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WHY HAVE SOME COORDINATED
TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS FAILED TO
SUCCEED OR SURVIVE?
There have been four key reasons that coordinated transportation
systems have not prospered or have even ceased to operate:
Not fully understanding local politics.
Not treating coordinated transportation like a business.
Not developing a strong institutional foundation.
Allowing partners to develop unrealistic expectations.
Not fully understanding local politics. Coordinated transportation
services often command many more resources than non-coordinated
operations. They become a new force within the community and may
become the target of envy and hostility if there are other local
stakeholders--for example, politicians or other transportation
providers--who are not firmly committed to the coordinated operations.
As noted in the Economic Benefits of Coordinating . . . report
(Burkhardt, Koffman, Murray, 2003), "Political individuals and
organizations with vested interests in "the status quo" will often view
expanded transportation services as a threat to their own power or
influence and may, therefore, take steps to derail both personal and
organizational capital invested in the coordinated transportation system."
Not treating coordinated transportation like a business. Like other
business operations, successful transportation services require a balance
between income and expenses. Many coordinated transportation
operations serve individuals who have quite limited incomes; a natural
tendency of the operators of these systems is to ask the riders to pay
very little of the actual costs of their trips. This is fine as long as
someone is paying the full costs of the trips. Sometimes an agency
will say to the transportation provider, "My clients really need rides, but
I can only pay you X amount of money." But X amount of money
usually runs out well before the end of the year, and then the
transportation provider faces the difficult issue of whether to deny trips
to people who really need them or to subsidize the agency that has
insufficient funds to serve its own clients. The way to deal with this
problem is to make sure that it does not come up in the beginning, and
tying payments for trips directly to the costs of those trips eliminates
this problem.
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Not developing a strong institutional foundation. Many coordinated
transportation systems are created through the efforts of dynamic and
creative individuals. Sometimes these persons even qualify for the title
of "charismatic leader." But sometimes these persons leave their position
for other interests or other communities. If the coordination process
depends too heavily on the efforts of such persons, it may founder if they
are no longer available. Similarly, a new stakeholder who is not
committed to cooperation, or even antagonistic to coordination, can
upset carefully constructed partnerships. The way to avoid such
situations is to develop formal institutional arrangements that may
include Memoranda of Understanding or other legal documents, so that
the coordination process has a strong and permanent enough foundation
to survive the loss or addition of particular individuals.
Allowing partners to develop unrealistic expectations. Partners in the
coordination process need to have an extremely clear idea of what to
expect. Cost issues can be among the most troublesome: non-coordinated
operators may have a poor idea of their actual transportation costs and
may be shocked to find that their actual cost per trip is much higher than
they had previously thought. Some agencies have entered into
coordination agreements with the idea that money would be returned to
them; as explained in Chapter 2, this is possible but seldom occurs.
Concerted efforts to develop a full understanding of coordination, early in
the coordination process, turn out to be quite worthwhile in the long run.
Other issues that may come up in some communities include the
inability of some partners to make long-term funding commitments,
shifting agency priorities (which may leave less emphasis on
transportation issues), and the inability to generate local community or
governmental support. When facing any of these issues, it is crucial to
recognize the fluid nature of coordination processes: they require
constant attention and the continued support of key stakeholders.
WHAT ARE THE FUNDAMENTAL
COMPONENTS OF SUCCESSFUL
COORDINATION?
Close attention to a small number of fundamental coordination concepts
will increase the probability of successful and sustainable coordinated
transportation services. The most significant of these concepts are
Chapter 4 Frequently Asked Questions About Coordination 89
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The partnership approach: shared power, shared funding,
shared responsibility. A key piece of the partnership approach
is cost sharing--the idea that all partners agree to at least some
responsibility for all the costs that coordinated transportation
involves--often through some sort of formal agreement.
Community-wide focus and community-wide support.
Transportation services that focus services narrowly on some
client groups but not others or some parts of the community and
not others are not liable to generate community-wide support.
Services to the entire community are best able to generate
community-wide support, meaning that transportation services
should focus on universal design and universal access (in other
words, open door transportation, service for everyone).
Resource management and quality control. What makes
coordination different from other management strategies is some
concept of broad oversight of all transportation resources within
the community. Added to this is the idea that trips are not just
provided; they are to be provided in a cost-effective manner that
is consistent with the needs and desires of the riders.
Maximizing productivity: ride sharing. Vehicles need to be
operated with as many passengers on them as possible at all
times. Some sort of coordinated trip assignment or joint
dispatching will probably be needed to ensure that all kinds of
passengers are on the vehicles at the same time, thus eliminating
duplication of routes and services.
Business focus: full cost recovery. As previously noted,
coordinated transportation services need to be operated in a
business-like fashion. All costs of service need to be accounted
for and paid: in a coordinated system, all of the partners will
share in making the payments.
Coordinated service scheduling with non-transportation
providers. While this approach is still relatively rare, it offers
great benefits, particularly for rural communities. It means that
not only do transportation providers communicate and coordinate
with each other, but that human service agencies, doctors,
hospitals, and other service organizations work jointly with the
transportation services to create a highly integrated scheduling of
services for clients, thus creating the most cost-effective overall
allocation of resources within the entire community.
90 Implementing New Coordination Efforts SECTION II
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There are other important success concepts that apply to all
transportation services, not just those that have coordinated operations:
A customer orientation that is truly responsive to the travel
needs and desires of the intended riders (and not merely focused
on operating vehicles);
Offering a broad service spectrum within a community that
ranges from mass transportation services to specialized services
to emergency services, and offering a similarly broad range of
prices based on service quality and responsiveness;
The intelligent use of volunteers to provide transportation for
the kinds of trips that could not be otherwise served in a cost-
effective manner;
Data that document the mobility benefits achieved by the
transportation services which are supported by the community;
Targeted marketing to discrete rider and stakeholder subgroups
to ensure that each market niche is fully cognizant of individual
and community benefits of the transportation services; and
Travel training for the intended riders of the transportation
services.
Systems that focus on the concepts described in this section are much
more likely to succeed in their attempts to provide efficient, effective,
and sustainable services that generate a broad base of community
support.
SUMMARY
This chapter has presented answers to some of the most frequently
asked questions about coordination:
Will coordination save me money?
What are the important funding sources for rural transportation?
What funding sources am I missing?
Which legislative barriers do I need to watch out for?
Chapter 4 Frequently Asked Questions About Coordination 91
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Where can I get planning funds?
What if we tried coordination before and never got anywhere?
Should we try again?
Some agencies are willing to participate, but others are not.
What should we do?
Whom should we involve in our initial efforts?
With all the work on coordinated transportation systems in rural
areas for many years, why isn't coordination easier?
Will coordination require that I give up my vehicles? Control
over my funding for transportation? The welfare of my clients?
Why have some coordinated transportation systems failed to
succeed or survive?
What are the fundamental components of successful
coordination?
Answers to other questions may be found in other chapters in this
Toolkit. If you can't find the answers here, go to your U.S. DOT or U.S.
HHS contacts, your state program contacts, professional associations, or
the published references listed in this Toolkit. It's likely that someone
will have found the answers to the questions that you have about
coordinated transportation services.
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TECHNIQUES FOR
IMPROVING CURRENT
COORDINATION EFFORTS
Section III
This is the "fine-tuning and repair kit" component of the Toolkit, the
part that provides information on how to maintain and repair
coordinated transportation services. Materials provided here will help
persons involved in coordination to gain a bit more performance or to
"save the day" when events are not working out as planned. It explicitly
recognizes that coordination is a process that can move backward as
well as forward and describes strategies and tactics to use to
institutionalize, to the extent possible, hard-won achievements.
The following kinds of information are included:
Strategic approaches to coordination (which to promote,
which to avoid);
Beneficial coordination approaches (how to maximize
results); and
Detailed coordination issues, such as ADA transportation
requirements, consensus building techniques, and needs
assessments.
Section III Techniques for Improving Current Coordination Efforts 93
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STRATEGIC
APPROACHES TO
COORDINATION
Chapter 5
Coordination has been approached in many ways in many communities.
This chapter discusses some of the most successful ways to approach
coordinated transportation services.
HIGH-IMPACT COORDINATION
STRATEGIES FOR TRANSPORTATION
OPERATORS
Attempts to coordinate transportation services are more likely to Attempts to coordinate
succeed when specific coordination objectives are identified and transportation services
appropriate strategies are employed. Certain strategies are often
are more likely to
associated with transportation operations that generate large economic
benefits from coordinated operations. These strategies include succeed when specific
coordination objectives
Tapping currently unused sources of funding, including using are identified and
new funds to expand services and to provide and upgrade
appropriate strategies
existing services;
are employed.
Decreasing the direct costs of providing transportation;
Increasing the productivity and utilization of vehicles on
the road;
Achieving the benefits (and avoiding the disbenefits) of
economies of scale;
Chapter 5 Strategic Approaches to Coordination 95
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Capturing the opportunities available from multiple providers
and multiple modes of travel; and
Instituting transportation services in areas lacking such services.
These strategies appear to be much more effective in generating
economic benefits than strategies addressing the following issues:
Who is the lead agency (e.g., a public transit authority, a human
service agency, a nonoperating brokerage, or a planning
agency);
Which services are emphasized (e.g., ADA paratransit services,
welfare-to-work [WtW] trips, agency trips, general public trips,
Medicaid trips, or others); and
What particular coordination technique is used (coordination,
consolidation, or brokerage, for example).
Strategies to Adopt
Case studies have been used to generate information about high-impact
transportation coordination strategies (Burkhardt et al., 2003). Strategies
that can generate large economic benefits for public transit operators
and human service agencies involved in coordinated transportation
systems (and their communities, too) are summarized below.
The transit authority contracts to provide trips to Medicaid
or other human service agency clients. In many communities,
Medicaid agencies have not made full use of fixed-route transit
services, opting for more costly paratransit services instead. As
shown in numerous cases, moving only a small proportion of
Medicaid clients to fixed-route transit service saves the
Medicaid agency very large sums of money, substantially
increases revenues of the transit authority at no additional
operating cost, and provides mobility benefits for Medicaid
clients. Public transit providers can also coordinate with local
school districts to transport students for regular classes or for
special purposes or special events. WtW programs will also
benefit from coordination with transit providers. These can be
considered to be key business expansion strategies.
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Human service providers provide ADA paratransit services
under contracts to transit authorities. In a number of
communities, human service agencies have been providing
paratransit services for a longer period of time than have transit
agencies. Typically operating as private nonprofit organizations,
the human service agencies often have cost structures that are
less expensive than those of the transit agencies and can thus
create significant savings for the transit agencies in providing the
ADA-mandated services. (Using volunteers for drivers or other
staff positions is one important way that human service agencies
can generate large cost reductions.) For transit operators,
contracting with human service transportation providers can be
considered to be a key cost reduction strategy.
Transit authorities and/or human service providers offer Paratransit trips are
incentives to paratransit riders to use fixed-route transit
often substantially
services. Paratransit trips are often substantially more expensive
than fixed-route trips. By offering incentives, including travel more expensive than
training, to frequent paratransit users, some of those paratransit fixed-route trips.
riders will switch their regular travel mode to the fixed-route
service. This strategy has real cost reduction benefits for
agencies that operate paratransit programs, fixed-route transit
operators, human service agencies who sponsor trips for
particular clients, and the riders themselves.
Human service agencies coordinate or consolidate their
separate transportation services and functions to create a
general public transportation system. Sometimes referred to
as the "classic" coordination example, human service agencies
band together to form a "critical mass" of service that can
qualify for general public funding and offer real travel options
throughout the entire community. This is a key productivity
enhancement strategy that can be referred to as a synthesis or
synergy strategy. It is often combined with cost reduction,
service enhancement, and mobility enhancement strategies.
Transportation providers institute a communitywide
coordinated dispatching operation so that all vehicles in use
can accommodate all types of passengers at all times. Often
entitled "ridesharing," this technique ensures the most cost-
effective application of driver and vehicle resources. Judiciously
applied, it can eliminate the typical precoordination situation of
Chapter 5 Strategic Approaches to Coordination 97
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overlapping and inefficient routes and schedules. In particular, the
benefits of providing trips for ADA paratransit clients at the same
time and on the same vehicle as other travelers creates much
lower per trip costs, thus generating real savings for public transit
operators. This is a key productivity enhancement strategy.
Travel services are expanded to more residents of the
Some of the largest community through a variety of low-cost strategies. Some of
the largest dollar savings evidenced in the case studies of
dollar savings
coordinated systems are those generated by the effective use of
evidenced in the case volunteers. Volunteers are most cost effectively used when
studies of coordinated specific trips have special requirements, such as the need for
systems are those hands-on or escorted services; when providing the trip would tie
generated by the up a vehicle and a driver for a relatively long time; or in other
circumstances where ridesharing would be difficult to
effective use of
implement. This is a key service expansion strategy that
volunteers. strongly relates to some cost reduction strategies.
Key coordination strategies are shown in Table 7. Many communities
will apply multiple coordination strategies.
Strategies to Avoid
Just as there are transportation coordination strategies to embrace, there
are also significant transportation service strategies to avoid. These are
also shown in Table 7 and summarized below. Most characterize
situations of little or no coordination; most of them are almost begging
to be coordinated.
Vehicles and drivers used to serve only one client or trip
type: agencies provide trips for only their own clients; agencies
provide trips only to certain destinations (e.g., medical facilities)
and not to other needed destinations.
Multiple dispatch facilities and other administrative
operations: each agency uses dispatch personnel dedicated to
only the needs of that particular agency; multiple agencies in the
same community invest in independently operated geographic
information systems (GISs) and automatic vehicle locator
(AVL) systems.
98 Techniques for Improving Current Coordination Efforts SECTION III
