Executive Summary

Congress has directed the Secretaries of the Departments of Transportation (U.S. DOT) and Health and Human Services (U.S. DHHS) to work together to develop guidelines for state and local planning agencies to achieve transportation coordination. The departments formed the U.S. DOT/U.S. DHHS Transportation Planning Workgroup to address those guidelines. In support of this process, the U.S. DOT's Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (Volpe Center), working with the Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA) Office of Planning, undertook this study of "Innovative State and Local Planning for Coordinated Transportation." The study examines seven specific planning strategies that can be used as part of a flexible regional planning process for coordinating transportation services of health and human service and transit agencies. The DOT/DHHS Coordinating Council on Access and Mobility has also authored "Planning Guidelines for Coordinated State and Local Specialized Transportation Services," which complements this report and is cross-referenced.

The joint UMTA/FHWA April 1976 regulations for elderly and handicapped transportation established accessibility criteria for U.S. DOT-funded projects that specifically included coordination as a means of implementing the "special efforts" required to comply with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (ADA's predecessor). The 1979 U.S. DOT regulation implementing the Section 504 requirements for U.S. DOT grantees specifically required (among others) that grantees create a "transition plan" including "the identification of coordination activities" as one of the eight requirements of these plans. The Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1978 established coordination as one of the requirements of Section 18 program created by that Act. ADA and TEA-21 are only the latest examples in a long line of U.S. DOT-required coordination efforts.

Coordination can substantially increase the availability of accessible transportation for people with disabilities. Although not mandated, coordination between local agencies is clearly a goal of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). ADA regulations require that public transit providers identify all other providers of transit services in their area as part of the preparation of the ADA complementary paratransit plan. The Transportation Equity Act for the 21^st Century (TEA-21) also contains a number of sections that directly address planning for the coordination of U.S. DOT and other non-U.S. DOT government agency funded transportation services. Language in TEA-21 encourages all agencies to participate in and coordinate the planning, design, and delivery of transportation services.

At present, planning for transportation services is markedly different between transit operators and health and human service agencies. FTA-funded transit operators are required to meet specific transportation planning requirements as a condition of funding, including provision of detailed operational data on cost and ridership, and participation in the regional metropolitan planning process. In contrast, as multi-service agencies, U.S. DHHS-funded programs view transportation services as a secondary function in support of their main mission and do not typically conduct transportation planning or have transportation reporting requirements. As a result, data and information to support planning for FTA and DHHS-funded transportation services are not always comparable, making planning for coordinated transportation between transit and health and human services challenging.

This report focuses on 15 case studies of transportation coordination. On a statewide level, in urban areas, and in rural communities, various organizations come together through many different forums to take advantage of the benefits of greater coordination of local transportation services. As the case studies presented illustrate, coordination can occur through many different forums including:

• Statewide task forces and coordinating councils
• Local health and human service agencies
• Local advisory boards
• A grass roots coalition
• MPO
• Transit agencies
• Local broker

Through these forums, coordinated transportation planning is occurring to improve access to transportation through inter-agency coordination resulting in more efficient uses of available resources, cost savings, and expanded services. In each of the case studies, coordination has resulted from a combination of the seven planning strategies examined in this report. Because these strategies are interdependent and often blended together, in many cases it is difficult to single out specific strategies.

Many of the approaches illustrated in the case studies would not be considered traditional "planning." This reflects the fact that coordination between human service and public transit agencies is not necessarily traditional. Instead, the intent of this report is to illustrate how each of these various strategies, both individually and applied together, might fit into a flexible regional transportation planning process to address the challenge of improving access.

A regional process could include a forum where agencies form partnerships:

Through partnerships, agencies are sharing planning resources:

Sharing planning resources has led agencies to begin to jointly identify the needs of their clients:

When agencies work together, they can view systems as a potentially coordinated whole and identify available services, costs, and revenues:

As systems become more coordinated, many agencies are beginning to share the costs of providing service in realization that they can leverage transportation dollars and enhance services:

Prior to or upon coordinating the transportation system, participating agencies need to define performance measures to evaluate the system:

When these strategies are put in place and a coordinated system is implemented, the agencies can measure the cost savings and benefits of coordination:

All of the planning strategies can come together as part of a single process as is the case in Buffalo, New York, where the transit agency, in partnership with local health and human service agencies, has recently undertaken a redesign of their existing system and services. Using all the planning strategies discussed in this report, the participants were able to develop an idea for a re-oriented system designed to increase their ridership by attracting a new client base, while providing a cost-effective transportation alternative to health and human service agencies.

The subject key on the following page provides a guide to the case studies contained in this report by planning strategy and key concepts for more in-depth review.

Coordination is taking many shapes as agencies join one another to develop various service delivery systems. From newly created transit systems, to broker/provider systems, and through human service lead agencies, systems are being created which not only improve transportation access for ADA paratransit and health and human service agency clientele, but also for the general public in some cases. In some areas passengers are being commingled from different agencies including seniors, persons with disabilities, school children, people moving from welfare to work, and the general public. This commingling of passengers not only allows the coordinated systems to realize higher operating efficiencies, but has the tangential benefit of lowering barriers between groups that may formerly have had little exposure to one another, both individually and at an agency level.

Coordinated systems have shown that through inter-agency cooperation and partnerships, agencies can expand service to enhance access to health care, shopping, education, employment, public services and recreation for specialized transportation service clients and the general public. This has been done by substantially increasing the transit options and overall availability of accessible transportation for people with disabilities, while eliminating duplication of services, enhancing service quality, and improving the overall cost-effectiveness of the local transportation system.

A coordinated transportation system will seek to maximize the efficiency of operations by reducing such measures as the cost per ride or cost per mile of transportation provided and by increasing the passenger per vehicle hour average. To realize these efficiencies, participating agencies need to examine the passenger base of the coordinated transportation system as a whole. This examination can be achieved through the joint identification of the participating agencies’ client needs. This process is an outcome of transit and health and human service agencies coming together to share planning resources.