Joint Identification of Client Needs

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.

The joint identification of client needs can contribute to a coordinated approach to transportation service delivery in a number of ways. When each agency’s client needs are regarded collectively, the participants are then able to take the first step in scoping the size and breadth of the coordinated system. The client needs will include the type of transportation needed, the origins and destinations of trips, and the timing and frequency of required trips. Once participating agencies have this information, they will be able to adjust existing paratransit services or create new services, as needed, while achieving efficiencies through commingling of clientele or coordinated dispatching of services. These improvements would not be possible without coordination.

As agencies have come together to coordinate transportation, their comparisons of client needs have commonly revealed two important issues related to human service and paratransit service quality. First, this process has allowed many agencies to overcome the impression that their clientele could or should not be commingled or ride-share with other agency clientele. Many agencies have found that other agency clientele have the same access needs as their own clientele. Common needs not only include access to transportation service and convenient scheduling, but also access to support service locations such as childcare or shopping. Second, it has allowed agencies to identify specific instances where clients may, in fact, need a specialized service, which would not be suitable for commingling. This knowledge results in better service quality for all involved. Furthermore, as agencies have accepted various degrees of commingling of clientele, a number of agencies have reported anecdotal support for the social benefits of having clients meet neighbors and seniors who have become helpful friends and mentors.

In the past few years, the goal of moving people from welfare to work provides a good example of various agencies working together to jointly identify their clients’ needs. Recent changes in national welfare legislation have led local public transit agencies and state and local social services departments to coordinate in order to identify the location of welfare recipients and compare that to available public transportation and job locations. Many welfare recipients are also clients of local health and human service agencies. As a result, transit agencies in many cities across the country have responded to welfare to work access not only by creating new or extended routes to service residential and job locations previously underserved, but also by providing more flexible paratransit services targeted to enhance access to transportation to all social services clientele. Therefore, addressing the welfare-to-work question has also helped to address the transportation coordination issue for these agencies.

The following two examples illustrate how the process of jointly identifying clients occurred, the agencies involved, the challenges faced, and the benefits realized from implementing the process. For additional information about joint identification of client needs, please see "Planning Guidelines for Coordinated State and Local Specialized Transportation Services," Checklist of Transportation Planning Steps, Steps 3 and 4.⁶

A. Flint, Michigan - The Transit Provider Working with Customers to Define Needs

In 1975, the MTA in Flint, Michigan had 25 vehicles and carried 800,000 passengers annually, while private companies provided additional transportation services. The MTA believed that while fixed-route systems would always be the bread and butter of their operations, door-to-door, customer-oriented transit represented the key to the future of their system and its viability. To prepare for that future, MTA made a commitment to strategic planning. MTA viewed the key to the strategic planning effort as working with local community and health and human service agencies to redefine and improve their services by identifying the transportation needs of potential customers. As a result, MTA has grown impressively over the past two decades by serving a whole host of new clients, including school children, pre-school aged children, elderly, persons with disabilities, and job-training clients. By 1998, the MTA had expanded to 325 vehicles (including 230 large buses with the remainder being vans and minibuses) carrying 6.5 million passengers in a service area covering 640 square miles, with a projected 10.5 million passengers by 1999. MTA’s services have been so successful that most health and human service agencies in the Flint area have left the transportation business, and rely on MTA to provide for most of their clients’ transportation needs.

MTA’s commitment to strategic planning begins at the county level through the Metropolitan Alliance, a subgroup of the Metropolitan Planning Commission, the area MPO. The Alliance consists of representatives of the state DOT, MTA, airport, private providers, and political units within the county who are responsible for integrating transportation services. The Alliance develops the long-range transportation plan (Plan) and the transportation improvement plan (TIP). The MTA presents the transit component of the TIP and the Plan to their local advisory committees (LAC) who review and discuss recommendations for service improvements to the full MTA Board. There are currently 5 transportation LACs:

• Elderly
• persons with disabilities
• Students/Employers
• Service Providers
• Job Access Transportation Needs

The LACs were established as a way for MTA to solicit input from its customer constituencies to ensure that services were meeting constituent demands. Membership on each of the LACs includes representatives of the constituent groups (e.g., elderly or persons with disabilities) as well as of the county or local non-profit, health and human service agencies responsible for administering programs for those constituent groups. The chairperson for each LAC sits on the Service Advisory Committee, which is a sub-group to the full MTA Board.

The need for new services is first reviewed by the Service Providers' LAC, which includes the MTA, transit agencies from surrounding counties, local taxi services, and private transportation providers. The LAC reviews the service needs to assess who might best provide that service and in some cases, how various agencies will coordinate. This assessment is based on an analysis of the demand (trips and frequency) for the new service, the ability to meet that demand with existing services, and the availability of resources to fund the service. Once those services are put in place, they are constantly refined through input from the other LACs. The LACs meet monthly to review how MTA is doing in meeting their needs and to discuss ideas for changes and improvements.

A recent example of improvements realized through this process was with the Elderly LAC. Seniors complained of having trouble using some 15-seat passenger vans because of the obstruction of the front seat in boarding the bus. Through the LAC, MTA worked to alter those buses to meet senior needs. More recently, in addressing a need identified through the elderly LAC, the MTA added a new transportation service to provide regularly scheduled shopping trips for seniors using vans equipped to carry shopping parcels to make the trip more convenient.

One of the keys to MTA being able to provide cost-effective transportation to community and health and human service agencies and the general public, is their ability to offer a fixed rate across all customer bases. The MTA Board establishes fixed rates based on the amount needed from farebox recovery to balance its annual budget. The ability to control and budget for transportation costs, based on the number of client trips, persuaded many customer agencies to realize considerable cost savings by leaving the transportation business. Another key to MTA’s success has been their willingness to commingle clients (i.e., elderly, school children, job training clients) while serving a variety of agencies.

MTA currently provides pupil transportation to the Flint School District (except for special education, which is mandated) and commingles school children with the general public at a considerable cost savings to the District. Formerly, it cost the district $660 per student for transportation on an annual basis. Now, MTA provides that service at $264 per student through a combination of fixed-routes, special routes, and curb-to-curb service. MTA currently carries 16,000 students per day out of 30,000 students in the area. Other districts in the area have indicated that they would like to have MTA handle their school bus service as well.

Today, MTA provides approximately 1,600 curb-to-curb trips per day, half of which are subscription services provided to clients of health and human service agencies. MTA has been flexible as it attempts to move into new markets, such as children below the age of six. MTA moves 300 children per day between the ages of 2 and 4 without their parents, and are also moving teen parents to their destinations after the children are dropped off. MTA has also worked with the Michigan Employment Security Agency and the local Family Independence Agency to provide transportation for welfare-to-work clientele. MTA’s work with the LACs has helped to establish and refine new and flexible services to address the special needs of customers, employers, and various community agencies. MTA’s efforts to reach out to constituents and provide coordinated transportation services have generated an impressive amount of public support. Local residents recently voted in support of MTA on the same ballot which provided the agency with a $2 million surplus.

B. Buncombe County, North Carolina - Developing a Community Transportation Service Plan

In 1978, the North Carolina State Legislature sponsored a study that identified the need to enhance transportation for seniors and other groups. The Governor issued an Executive Order requiring a coordinated planning process. Starting July 1, 1997, the North Carolina DOT required counties to develop Community Transportation Service Plans (CTSP) with local transit and health and human service agencies every four years in order to receive funds flowing through the state. A state level inter-agency committee was formed, the Human Services Transportation Council (HSTC), which included state departments of transportation, and health and human services. The HSTC determined that for each county there would be only one designated recipient for FTA 5310 (capital assistance for agencies serving elderly and persons with disabilities) and 5311 (rural and small urban community assistance) funds to promote joint coordination of services between agencies and providers. The county transportation plans would identify who would be the recipients of 5310 and 5311 funds.

In Buncombe County, the county is the designated recipient for these funds, which are then used to support the operations of Mountain Mobility, the County’s community transportation system. The Transportation Division of the County Planning and Development Department operates Mountain Mobility. The county, with a population of 195,000, is the home to the City of Asheville, which accounts for approximately 35% of the county’s population and is served by the Asheville Transit Authority’s (ATA) fixed-route system. Mountain Mobility contracts with the Authority to provide paratransit services within the city and provides transportation services to health and human service agencies, Medicaid, elderly, and rural general public clientele throughout the county. As part of operating the community transportation system for the county, Mountain Mobility works with its advisory board, which includes representatives of the following agencies:

• Department of Aging
• Mental Health Agency
• Department of Social Services
• County Health Department
• Division of Vocational Rehabilitation
• Chamber of Commerce
• Employment Services Division
• ATA
• Private transportation providers

In North Carolina, advisory boards are an important mechanism for developing county CTSPs amongst the various agencies that jointly identify client needs, available services, and costs. As part of this process, Mountain Mobility undertakes an in-depth service planning process with its client agencies to examine existing services and opportunities to save costs through the use of alternatives such as the ATA’s fixed-route services. The key to the service planning process is a survey of all client agencies including nursing homes, rest homes, and any agency or non-profit in the county whose clients require transportation services that could potentially be provided by Mountain Mobility. The survey examines each agency’s needs and how they are currently being met. The survey asks for transportation operating revenue and expenditures to examine how costs are currently being allocated, whether or not all costs are being captured, and the funding sources used.

As part of the process, private providers in the county are surveyed to determine what transportation services are available and to measure the capacity of the system as a whole. Mountain Mobility also works with the employment community to examine employment transportation to assess their needs versus current services and in relation to welfare-to-work transportation issues. Survey information and operational data maintained by Mountain Mobility are then consolidated and analyzed by trip purpose, fare category, and are mapped using the Geographic Information System (GIS) for system evaluation purposes. The service planning process also includes an examination of related programs and services such as Emergency Medical Service (EMS), trips across county lines, areas where coordination might occur, and holding public forums to solicit input from the general public.

Once all this information has been consolidated and analyzed, Mountain Mobility planning staff incorporate service and organizational alternatives and consider redesigns of the current system. This may include recommendations that a new agency come into the system. The information in the CTSP would serve to identify the cost to that agency of currently providing that service and whether or not Mountain Mobility could provide a more cost-effective service. The CTSP also provides the basis for the service levels and contract costs that Mountain Mobility will establish with each agency.

Cooperation at the state level has ensured that this service planning effort is not wasted. The state DOT and HHS agency have agreed that health and human service funds would not be used for capital expenditures relating to transportation, but rather to purchase services from the local coordinating providers in each county. The state would pay for the capital equipment from state funds and would combine federal 5310 and 5311 funds to support the administrative functions for the designated local recipients of the funding. The state has also taken steps to further coordinate planning through the installation of a standard scheduling and billing software throughout the state which will enable the state to standardize ridership information and track costs by category of riders. Better information will allow the state, through the HSTC, to continue to advocate full allocation of costs for transportation between agencies, and support local community transportation systems’ efforts to establish rates for agencies purchasing services that reflect the full cost of the service provided.