Mobility for All (M4A) Project
Webinar Recording Now Available
Using a grant from the FTA, ODOT recently completed a project to develop proposals for new data standards to increase visibility of and ease of access to specialized transportation services, including demand response services such as dial-a-ride and paratransit. A webinar on this project was held on August 25, 2021, and the recording is now available.
This project was made possible through a grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation Mobility for All Pilot Program whose goal is to improve mobility and access to public transportation for older adults, people with disabilities, and individuals of low income. Our project has focused on creating standardized and computer-readable data related to rider eligibility and service capability by developing new "extensions" to General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) data.
This work has focused on making public transportation more useful when people can easily find out whether the service can take them where they want to go, at the time they want to travel, with the items they need to have, and knowing whether the vehicle is going to arrive as planned. Finding information about demand response services is labor-intensive, and the burden often falls on riders themselves to figure out what exists, whether they qualify for a specific type of transportation, and whether a provider can meet their service needs. Additionally, transit agencies have difficulty communicating their services – especially very specialized services - to the public.
These new data standards will allow standardized and computer-readable ways to describe rider eligibility and service provider capacity. GTFS-eligibilities addresses how a person’s individual characteristics (e.g., age, disability status, residence, employment, or registration in a program) may affect their access to specialized public transportation services. GTFS-capabilities will describe a transportation provider’s ability to meet a rider’s needs (e.g., whether the provider offers services such as door-to-door service, door-through-door service, stretcher service, mobility device accommodation, and bariatric capability).
The project findings were shared in a free public webinar that included discussion of the challenges, how the results of the project will continue, and how it can benefit transit agencies providing specialized transportation services.
Information on this work is available at: www.GTFSpecs.org
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