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23
CHAPTER 3
National Survey Results
Development of the Survey A second electronic mailing was conducted in May 2008 to
282 public transit agencies listed as members of the Commu-
A survey was also developed and administered to get broad nity Transportation Association of America (CTAA). The list
feedback from the industry on ADA paratransit vehicle oper- provided by CTAA was cross-checked with the APTA list to
ator issues. The survey was developed to be answered both by eliminate duplicates.
public transit agencies and by private companies providing
ADA paratransit services under contract to public entities. A
general set of questions was developed to be answered by all Responses
public transit agencies, regardless of whether they operated The online survey link was kept open through June of
service directly or contracted out for some or all of the ser- 2008. Responses were received from 76 public transit agen-
vice. Additional questions were then included for public tran- cies. In some cases, respondents did not complete all of the
sit agencies that operated some or all of their ADA paratran- questions in the survey. Of the 76 public transit agencies that
sit service in-house. responded, 50 complete responses were received.
Public transit agencies that contracted out for some or all Responses were also received from 47 private contractors.
of their ADA paratransit service were then asked to forward This included 39 contractors who provided service for 26 of
the survey to all of their private contractors. The survey was the public transit agencies that also completed the survey. In
structured to then get specific information from these private some cases, this included multiple contractors for a single
contractors. transit agency. It also included eight private contractors of
Finally, the survey was structured to have slightly different public transit agencies that did not complete the survey (the
questions for public agencies and private contractors who public entities forwarded the survey to their contractor with-
operated only ADA paratransit service versus those who were out completing the public agency questions).
involved in the operation of both ADA paratransit and fixed- In total, a response--either from the public transit agency
route services. For example, for entities that operated both and/or from one or more contractors--was received from
types of services, questions about pay rates and fringe bene- 84 transit districts across the country. Given that surveys were
fits asked for information for both modes. sent to 634 different public agencies, this represents about a
A copy of the questions included in the electronic survey is 13% response rate.
provided in Appendix A. Responses were received from public transit agencies and
private contractors in 27 states. Of the 76 public transit agen-
Distribution of the Survey cies that responded, 21 were in large urban areas, 26 were in
medium-sized cities, and 29 were in rural areas or small urban
Two separate electronic mailings of the survey were com- communities.
pleted. The first, in March of 2008, was sent to 352 public Responses were also received from service providers of all
transit agencies included on the member contact list of the sizes. The total number of ADA paratransit vehicle operators
American Public Transit Association (APTA). APTA pro- ranged from 2 to 522. Table 3-1 shows the distribution of
vided an electronic list of these member agencies. The survey respondents by number of total ADA paratransit operators
was sent electronically to the persons listed as the primary employed. As shown, a total of 69 respondents indicated that
APTA contacts with instructions to forward it to the appro- they employed vehicle operators directly. Among these 69,
priate individuals in the agency. there was a fairly good distribution of operations by size.
