Travel Training for Older Adults Part II: Research Report and Case Studies (2014)

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93 Key Research Questions and Findings This study examined a number of specific research questions. Because data to investigate these questions typically came from the local travel training programs, the analyses that were pos- sible were limited by the available data. Thus, the insights that were gained into these research questions need to be under- stood as insightful observations rather than the results of large- scale data analyses. Nonetheless, these insights should prove useful to individuals interested in improving the practice of travel training. Because most of these questions have been discussed in-depth in previous sections of this report or in TCRP Report 168: Travel Training for Older Adults, Part I: A Handbook, the results of these investigations are summarized here. What Are the Key Components of Effective Travel Training Programs? Effective travel training programs for older adults can be complex to design and deliver, but they should be simple and understandable to older travel trainees. To be effective, pro- grams should contain the following elements: 1. Philosophy, vision, and mission: first focus on customer service. 2. Focus on individual abilities and learning patterns. 3. Professional, well-trained staff. 4. Well-developed travel training curricula. 5. Strong program partners—including public transit systems. 6. Community outreach and education. 7. Rigorous procedures for identifying all program costs. 8. A program for tracking the results of travel training completed. 9. Outcome measures for individuals and the program as a whole. 10. Stable and sustainable funding. • Philosophy, vision, and mission: first focus on customer service: Travel training programs should be designed to serve older adults, with savings in public transportation costs being a result, but not the primary objective of the training program. A central element should be a social ser- vices model of service delivery, meaning a central focus on meeting the needs of older adults and the skills they require to remain active, mobile, and independent, and to age in place. Transportation cost savings will result, but should not be the primary goal of a travel training program. • Focus on individual abilities and learning patterns: Effective travel training has a strong individual focus, with a strong emphasis on individual abilities and learning patterns. • Professional, well-trained staff: The travel training program should be staffed with professionals who understand a social services model of program delivery and who understand the travel needs of older adults. They should have the ability to evaluate travel training candidates and be able to recom- mend appropriate training, whether that training is for fixed route or paratransit service. • Well-developed travel training curricula: Travel train- ing curricula should be developed and organized to serve the diversity of travel training needs present among older adults. Curricula need to encompass individual, group, and follow-up, or refresher, training. In some circumstances, group training may be sufficient but some older adults will require individualized training tailored to their capabili- ties, experience, environment, and trip destinations they need to reach. Some travel trainees may require periodic retraining. • Strong program partners—including public transit systems: The first program partner should be the organi- zation that sponsors the travel training program. Program partners are essential to success. Partners include public transit systems if the travel training program is set up outside the public transit system. Program partners should include human services agencies that provide services to older adults, organizations that advocate for older adults, and places where older adults gather. C H A P T E R 6

94 • Community outreach and education: Broad community support matters, from local governments which serve and care about older adults in their community to the general citizenry who take pride in their community. Outreach and education begins with program partners, so they fully understand the program, how it operates, and how older adults and the community may benefit. Outreach is important to other community organizations that may help older adults become aware of the travel training oppor- tunities. Outreach also builds support within the business community. • Rigorous procedures for identifying all program costs: Travel training programs need to adopt and apply industry- wide standards of fully allocated cost accounting principles and performance measures for all travel training programs. Industrywide standards are needed for common charts of accounts to record all costs incurred. • A program for tracking the results of travel training completed: Measuring results is important for a number of reasons, including documenting the benefits that older adults receive. The industry needs agreed-upon standards for measuring program outputs, outcomes, and benefits. Benefits can be measured in a number of ways. Surveys of travel trainees can measure benefits of training immediately upon completion of training and at 3-, 6-, 9-, and 12-month intervals. Equally important are program results, including benefits reported by trainees who are older adults. • Outcome measures for individuals and the program as a whole: Outcome measures should focus on measuring individual results and overall program results. Measuring individual results shows the direct benefits to trainees. Measuring program results shows aggregate benefits to older adult trainees and measures of the effectiveness of the program overall, including cost savings for public trans- portation and other providers. Demonstrated cost savings are likely to be critical to obtaining sustainable funding for the travel training program, and documentation of them will help support sustainable funding. • Stable and sustainable funding: Sustainable funding is critical to support a successful travel training program, which will incur expenses for staffing, support materials, facilities, and general operating support. The savings in paratransit service by increased use of fixed route service and addi- tional farebox revenues from older adults who never used paratransit service, but now ride fixed route service, will generate a financial benefit for public transit systems that exceeds their cost. For more information, see the section entitled “What Makes an Effective Travel Training Program?” in Chapter 4 of TCRP Report 168: Travel Training for Older Adults, Part I: A Handbook. How Can Effective Travel Training Programs Be Established? Setting up a travel training program for older adults requires a sequence of steps that help establish the details of the program and confirm the support and participation of key community stakeholders. A series of seven steps should lead to a viable program. 1. Establish a mission statement and set goals: When set- ting up a travel training program, it is important to develop a mission statement of what it will try to accom- plish. Goals should be achievable and measureable. Other travel training programs should be contacted and asked what they did to get started, what funding was needed to get started, and how many hours were needed to start and run a program. 2. Gather stakeholders: This could be done by establishing a working group or some other administrative structure that meets the needs of the local community. The stakeholders in the community could include the transit organization or organizations, senior living facilities, and other senior- oriented organizations. 3. Design the travel training program: Existing and poten- tial local conditions should be analyzed; these conditions should include demographics, spatial distributions, trans- portation services and areas they serve, potential program partners, and how the private sector can support and contribute to the program. Alternative options should be designed and assessed to find the best option or options. Travel training procedures should include a manual of what travel training means to the local community. A program that is flexible and scalable should be created based on need and budget restraints. 4. Confirm funding: A budget that suits local community resources and needs should be established. Funding sources should be identified and funding obtained for the travel training program. 5. Establish administrative and other methods: Data collec- tion systems and administrative protocols need to be estab- lished, and forms to capture key information on the costs and the results of these programs, including the participants who use the programs, need to be developed. It is impor- tant for data to be collected in similar formats to capture key information; this will help to measure the program’s success in future years. 6. Conduct a pilot test: The program that was developed among the stakeholders should be pilot tested by offering it to older adults and collecting information on expenses and outcomes. After the pilot test is completed, the out- comes need to be evaluated. This should include feedback from the stakeholders and from the customers.

95 7. Evaluate the outcomes; modify goals and activities as needed: Formal methods for obtaining data on the inputs and outputs of the travel training program should be established and feedback loops to initial goals and plans and continuous improvement cycles to refine and improve the program should be created. For more information, see the section entitled “How Do You Set Up an Effective Travel Training Program in Your Community?” in Chapter 4 of TCRP Report 168: Travel Training for Older Adults, Part I: A Handbook. What Kinds of Resources Are Needed for an Effective Travel Training Program? Cost per person trained in travel training programs would certainly be a useful measure for comparing and contrasting travel training programs, but cost information is not currently available for specific individual components of travel training programs, such as one-on-one training (very expensive), group training (relatively low cost), or orientations (very low cost). In addition, training costs are not currently separated for per- sons with disabilities and older adults, nor is it certain that all travel training programs are recording the same expenses in a consistent fashion. These issues make all currently available cost-per-person comparisons considerably less precise than would be desired. Currently reported travel training costs— which are averages including all types of training and all types of persons—range from a little more than $300 to more than $1,500 per person. Because many of the 20 case study sites applied significantly different procedures to recording and reporting their budgets, expenses, and results, great care is needed when discussing reported budgets and expenses. To no one’s surprise, programs that trained large numbers of persons and included many kinds of activities showed larger expenses. Annual expenses reported ranged from tens of thousands of dollars for programs oper- ating for only parts of a year or only reporting labor costs but no other costs to hundreds of thousands of dollars for the most robust programs. Among the seven in-depth case stud- ies, the annual expenses reported ranged from a bit more than $145,000 (Boulder) to $855,000 (the RTA in Chicago, which reported the largest number of trainees of the cases studied). (Note: Because accounting and reporting procedures differed from site to site, the expenses and results reported by the case studies may not be strictly comparable. A key industry objective should be to make reporting procedures more comparable.) Most programs are dependent on a few but highly focused funding sources, including state departments of transpor- tation, state transit agencies, or local government agencies. Most programs have resource needs and resources that are very specific to local conditions. These programs obtained funding from the following sources, although none of these programs obtained funding from all of these sources: • The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) Job Access and Reverse Commute program (JARC). • The FTA New Freedom program. • State DOT funds. • Other state funds (for example, departments of rehabilitation). • FTA Section 5310 funds. • United Way. • Local governments. • Local transit systems. • Foundations. Among the seven in-depth case study programs, a signifi- cant proportion of their funding came from the federal JARC and New Freedom programs. The 2012 MAP-21 legislation changed FTA program funding in ways that may make the use of JARC and New Freedom resources more difficult to obtain for travel training programs. For more information on funding sources, see the section entitled “What Resources Are Needed for an Effective and Sus- tainable Travel Training Program?” in Chapter 4 of TCRP Report 168: Travel Training for Older Adults, Part I: A Handbook. What Were the Obstacles to Participation? How Were They Overcome? Based on the case studies conducted, the potential chal- lenges of creating a successful travel training program might include the following: Maintaining consistent program funding streams can be the biggest challenge travel training programs face. Fund- ing for travel training is not ensured; a lack of funding may limit the full potential of any travel training program. It is difficult to plan for the future or expand program efforts in the absence of stable and adequate sources of funding. Funding issues can be complicated due to the variety of travel training operating models, differences between states, and changes in the federal program structure. Fund- ing is always subject to the issues associated with local, state, and federal budgets. The nature of travel training programs may in itself be chal- lenging. These programs involve equipping individuals to explore, use, and then thrive in environments that they may consider as new, foreign, or even threatening. Many older adults perceive losing their ability to drive as the first step in giving up their independence. Due to lack of

96 experience with fixed route transit, individuals may have misconceptions about the safety and flexibility of using public transportation. Family members may also have con- cerns about the idea of their older family member using fixed route transit. These perceptions can be overcome through training, but they may discourage some older adults from even entering a travel training program. • Travel training programs are the type of programs in which costs are incurred first, but some of the benefits, including cost savings, accrue months or even years later. This means that tracking the costs of and benefits of travel training and documenting public transit cost savings needs to be a key task of the programs. • Extreme weather conditions can be a disincentive for some older adults to travel to training programs or other destinations. • On a personal level, many of the functional ability losses that can lead to older adults having to give up driving can also preclude them from using public transit even if it is available, so there are some limitations on who can benefit from travel training. Outreach is critical because bringing older adults into a travel training program can be challenging for a number of reasons: • The frequently negative media culture surrounding the use of public transit. • Difficulties in identifying a continuing stream of trainees. • The natural reluctance among some older adults to ask for assistance while traveling. • Concerns for individual safety or welfare. • Limitations in funding and staffing. • The persistence needed to ensure that older adults, once trained, are traveling at stable or increasing rates. Collaboration is key to developing a successful travel training program. It takes time and resources to establish and nurture relationships among transit agencies and with the senior living communities and the agencies that work with older adults, but creating this collaborative working relationship will benefit the travel training program and the commu- nity in the long run. Collaboration with transit agencies is a key to ensuring that their services are sensitive to the needs of the older adult population, that routes provide access to destinations where concentrations of older adults live and socialize, and ensures that the needs of transit agencies are met by providing growth potential for fixed routes, increasing ridership, and potentially savings from deferred paratransit trips. Problems with the infrastructure of the public transit sys- tem in the community (e.g., having buses available, having bus stops that are accessible, having services at the right times and to many destinations) may limit who can benefit from travel training. Some communities will need coor- dination across political jurisdictions and among transit agencies, particularly in terms of scheduling, route con- nections, and fare media. Environmental obstacles can include uneven terrain and poor or lack of curbing at bus stops. For more information, see the section entitled “What Are Some Obstacles That Your Travel Training Program Might Encounter?” in Chapter 4 of TCRP Report 168: Travel Train- ing for Older Adults, Part I: A Handbook. Are Special Travel Training Programs Needed in Rural Areas? Whether operating in urban or rural areas, effective travel training programs are sensitive to local characteristics, includ- ing demographic and economic characteristics of the popu- lation, local transportation resources, local funding sources, and spatial relationships of activities. If these sensitivities are evident, the differences between urban and rural training programs are not large. The kinds of rural community features that must be considered may include: • Limited local transportation resources. • Many individuals may have had no previous experiences with public transportation, so overcoming initial fears and misperceptions can become a large part of travel training. • Trips may require covering large distances in large amounts of time. • Unique ethnic and cultural norms may need to be considered. • A close personal knowledge of the individual and her/his immediate local travel options may be needed. • Individuals needing travel training may need assistance in accessing a wide range of public and other services. Pending Issues A number of interesting research issues could not be resolved at this time due to incomplete data. These include the following: • What constituted an effective marketing program? • What kinds of incentive programs were effective? In both cases, potentially effective programs were observed but there was no information available concerning their effectiveness.