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WHAT IS TRANSPORTATION COORDINATION?
The coordination of specialized transportation services is a process in which two or more organizations interact to jointly accomplish their transportation objectives. For the purposes of this document, coordination is defined as "a process through which representatives of different agencies and client groups work together to achieve any one or all of the following goals: more cost-effective service delivery; increased capacity to serve unmet needs; improved quality of service; and, services which are more easily understood and accessed by riders."
Coordinating transportation means obtaining more results with your existing resources through working with others from different agencies with unique perspectives. Coordination is also an intensely local activity. The best plans for coordinating transportation services will need to be tailored closely to each community's unique needs, skills, and resources.
Most of the agencies or programs that will participate in coordinated transportation services must account to state and/or federal funding sources regarding the expenditure of program funds. Thus, it is essential to clearly define and communicate what is meant by coordinated transportation to all parties who are potential participants.
Three terms are often used interchangeably in discussions about coordination: cooperation, coordination and consolidation. These terms have different meanings and are more clearly understood in the context of working relationships and organizational commitments:
- Cooperation: Working together in some loose association, perhaps focusing primarily on information sharing, in which all agencies retain their separate identities and authorities, including control over the vehicles which they own.
- Coordination: Joint decision and actions of a group of agencies with formal arrangements to provide for the management of the resources of a distinct system.
- Consolidation:
Vesting all operational authority in one agency that then provides services according to purchase of service agreements or other contractual relationships.
Each of the phases implies different levels of involvement and commitment. Cooperation is integral to coordination and consolidation. Coordination is usually as far as the process progresses. Consolidation is rare. Although often providing a high degree of efficiency and monetary benefit, the loss of control inherent in consolidation proves too threatening to many agencies.
Whatever level of coordination is ultimately achieved, the coordination process entails joint efforts in converting perspectives of narrow self-interest into broader community-wide activities. Individuals who may not be used to talking or working with each other will need to develop levels of trust, respect, and shared responsibilities. A willingness to be open-minded about changing long-standing operating procedures will be required. This can include the blending of travel purposes, client types, travel modes, funding sources, vehicle types, and the needs of different political jurisdictions, as well as philosophies and perspectives.
WHY COORDINATE TRANSPORTATION SERVICES?
To meet national objectives for human service programs, whether they focus on education, job training, welfare reform, elderly nutrition, health and medical care, or many other services, the programs’ intended recipients must have access to those services. But the intended recipients of such programs are often individuals with the most limited means of access and mobility.
Years of research, demonstrations, and evaluations have shown that coordinating transportation services is a management strategy that can generate significant benefits for participating agencies and consumers. Coordination efforts can work effectively at either the state or local levels though they can be characterized by different stakeholders and activities. At the state level, the benefits of coordination efforts are realized in "good government" improvements. State level transportation and human service agencies are able to do more effective service planning and project implementation in transportation. The potential benefits of transportation coordination at the local level include greater service levels, increased mobility for all consumers, better quality of service for riders, cost savings (especially on a unit cost basis), upgraded maintenance programs, better reporting and record keeping, more equitable cost sharing between participating agencies and individuals, more professional delivery of transportation services, and safer transportation services.
In communities a variety of public and private agencies provide transportation services to persons who are disadvantaged in their ability to obtain transportation. These agencies and organizations often include:
- Departments of Social Services, which arrange Medicaid transportation as well as transportation for low-income persons; Departments of Health and Mental Health, which provide medical trips;
- Area Agencies on Aging, which transport elderly clients to senior centers and other service destinations;
- Vocational and or developmental disabilities departments, which transport clients to sheltered workshops for employment and training;
- Departments of Employment, which are responsible for implementing U. S. Department of Labor funded programs, such as those serving individuals who are moving from welfare to work;
- Departments of Education, which transport many students and provide specialized transportation for vocational rehabilitation students;
- Public transportation agencies, which provide general public transportation services as well as complementary paratransit services to transport persons with certified disabilities wherever the public transit agency provides fixed-route transportation; public transit agencies sometimes also offer special services for the elderly; and
- Many different private non-profit organizations, such as the Red Cross and faith-based organizations, which provide transportation to a variety of persons for different purposes.
Each of these agencies and organizations may receive funding for transportation services from one or many sources, including Federal, state, local and non-profit programs. Such funds are accompanied by specific objectives for serving limited clienteles and by specific rules and operating requirements.
At the state level, coordination efforts might include a broad range of public agencies and organizations representing providers and consumers of transportation services. The participants may include:
- State transportation agency
- State Medicaid agency
- State agency on aging
- State social services agency
- State health agency
- State economic development agency
- State workforce development agency
- State mental health agency
- State Developmental Disabilities Council
- State consumer organizations
- State associations of public transit providers
- State association of paratransit providers
- State associations of private for profit transportation operators
- Appropriate local officials
- Business and civic leaders.
WHY ISN'T IT EASIER TO COORDINATE THESE RESOURCES?
It is very important to recognize the basic categorical nature of federal grant programs: these grant programs originate from separate congressional sources and are supported by distinct national constituencies. Federal funds reaching the localities come from many categorical programs developed to serve distinct and specific target groups with different needs.
Successful coordination means finding ways to reconcile the relevant funding and programmatic differences in these programs, a significant challenge. Part of that challenge will involve dealing with persons who are unfamiliar with the missions, objectives, terminology, rules, and regulations of agencies other than their own. For example, the use of the term "client" is indicative of the differences between human services and transportation agencies. Individuals are "clients" in the human services agency and "riders or consumers" in the transportation agency. Such basic differences may seem trivial, but can be the source of misunderstanding. Serious coordination efforts constitute a new way of doing business, outside of the traditional programmatic boundaries of service delivery. It requires a clear understanding that there are many different federal programs that are interested in transporting individuals in need of human services.
The large number of programs pose a challenge and an opportunity. Underlying all the work necessary to coordinate transportation services is the complexity of working with multiple administrative entities, each with their own requirements and procedures.
The basic missions and organizational cultures of DOT and HHS are different. DOT/Federal Transit Administration (FTA) programs support state and local agencies that are providing transportation services for all members of the general public (except for services provided under the ADA, which are restricted to a specific segment of the general public). HHS programs support state and local agencies providing a variety of specified social or health services to specific, restricted groups of individuals whose receipt of such services is often tightly controlled by programmatic eligibility requirements. The transportation services provided to human services clients are not primary but secondary services: they are provided solely for the purpose of accessing targeted services or achieving other stated objectives.
DOT and HHS-funded programs differ structurally regarding eligible recipients, eligible activities, appropriations, allocations, requirements for matching Federal funds, funding availability, funding cycles, planning procedures, and reporting requirements. Program-by-program requirements are summarized in the Resource Guide for Coordinated Transportation Planning.
DOT-funded public transportation agencies have specific, comprehensive and relatively uniform Federal requirements for planning while HHS-funded programs meet varied federal planning or performance monitoring requirements reflecting different legislative origins. DOT grantees generally have specific requirements to monitor and to report the results of their transportation efforts to their Federal funding sources. Data on transportation expenses and outcomes are more readily available from DOT's grantees, whose primary missions are to provide public transportation. HHS grantees, whose primary missions are to provide human services, are generally not required to monitor and report on transportation efforts, making data on transportation in human services programs less readily available at the Federal level. HHS-funded programs have legislative mandates, regulations, administrative structures, program funding flows, administrative oversight, and planning procedures that differ from each other as well as from those of transit agencies. A significant policy issue is where to insert a coordinated planning process in the chain of command. For many programs, the obvious answer would be within the departments in State governments that administer the Federal funds, but significant HHS and DOT programs bypass States altogether; they either establish a direct Federal-local linkage, or they work through a Federal-regional-local model.
More detailed information on the specific differences between HHS and DOT funded programs and the practical implications of those differences can be found in the Overcoming Coordination Challenges booklet of the Transportation Coordination Toolkit.
THE BENEFITS OF COORDINATION
Coordination strategies can improve the performance of various individual transportation services as well as the overall mobility within a community. It wrings inefficiencies out of the disparate operations and service patterns of a multiplicity of providers. Coordinated services can achieve economies of scale not available to smaller providers and can result in higher quality services. Greater efficiency helps to stretch the limited funding and personnel resources of these agencies. Coordination helps to control fraudulent activities associated with financial accountability. Coordination can also lead to significant reductions in per trip operating costs allowing communities to use these savings to expand services to persons or areas not previously served. Persons with special transportation needs benefit from the greater amount of transportation and higher quality services when transportation providers coordinate their operations. Organizations participating in coordinated efforts often find that they have access to a greater number of sources for matching funds when applying for transportation funding. Lastly, when there is a well-organized local coordinated planning effort, elected officials, agencies, consumers and others become aware and educated about the planning processes of a wide range of community services.
The following kinds of inefficiencies and problems are often observed in the absence of efforts to coordinate:
- a multiplicity of operators, each with its own mission, equipment, eligibility requirements, funding sources, and institutional objectives; the absence of a formal mechanism for cooperation or communication among these operators;
- a total level of service well below the total level of need;
- inefficient use of vehicles;
- significant variations in services available during particular times of day or days of the week and to specific groups of persons, and duplicative services in some neighborhoods but substantial gaps where no service is available in other areas;
- substantial variations in service quality, including safety standards, from provider to provider;
- a lack of reliable information for consumers, planners, and service operators, describing the services being provided and their costs;
- the absence of an overall compendium of services available or of the funds being used to provide them; and
- the absence of a reliable mechanism to quantify overall service needs and create a comprehensive plan to address these problems.
Coordination isn't always easy to achieve, and it won't solve all transportation problems in all communities. Coordination will be effective in communities where there is substantial unused vehicle time, substantial unused vehicle capacity; or a lack of economies of scale in planning, administration, operations, purchasing, or maintenance. Thus, coordination has its most visible impact in communities where transportation efficiency is low. However, in communities where persons who need services are not being served but there is little or no inefficiency, coordination by itself will not be an effective strategy: in these cases, additional resources are needed. For a more extensive discussion of the challenges to coordination, see Overcoming Coordination Challenges in the Transportation Coordination Toolkit.
The Costs of Coordination
Coordination has its costs. It may be initially more expensive, more difficult, and more time-consuming to achieve than most agency representatives initially perceive. Coordination may increase overall cost-effectiveness or reduce unit costs (for example, costs per trip) but coordination may not necessarily free up transportation dollars for other activities. Some agencies have hoped to see money returned to them. This has seldom happened because any cost savings realized are most often devoted to addressing unmet travel needs. Also, coordination agreements can unravel over time, so that constant work is necessary to ensure that all parties keep working together.
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