OP-ED: Three lessons learned from paratransit’s full-circle journey

Transit agencies got paratransit right the first time; they just didn't know it. Now they know, and paratransit riders will be the beneficiaries. Let me explain.

In 1974, in response to concerns from the local community regarding Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Miami, Fla., launched a pilot transportation service for the elderly and the disabled. Instead of having to hoof it to the closest bus stop, a pre-arranged taxicab would pick up riders curbside at their requested location. Nothing like this formally existed in the U.S. at the time; in fact, the wheelchair bound had no public transportation options at all. This program offered taxi service to both ambulatory and non-ambulatory riders. Transferable wheelchair users were assisted into taxis with their chairs stored in the trunk. Meanwhile, non-transferable riders traveled in an ambulance with a driver and attendant who literally lifted the rider and chair into the rear of the vehicle.  

The pilot service was a roaring success. Riders loved it and fares were cheap, even for wheelchair riders. Two years later, the Miami-Dade Special Transportation Service (STS) was formally inaugurated, more than a decade before the word "paratransit" would be commonly used, and 14 years before the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) would be enacted. I was the general manager of the STS program, and over the next few years we expanded the service, added wheelchair lift vans, computerized routing and scheduling, while becoming a model for the nation. We were regularly visited by transit agencies and private operators as paratransit grew nationwide. 

Politicians and riders equally loved the taxi model as it tended to run with a high degree of satisfaction at a low cost. But guess what soon happened? Many local bureaucrats said to themselves: "Hey, this looks pretty easy! How about we take paratransit in-house and start doing this ourselves?" And Frankenstein was born.  

Transit agencies nationwide took control of their paratransit operations, often either running it entirely themselves, or subcontracting it out after establishing parameters that only a physics major might understand. The more complicated their systems became, the worse service got, and the higher costs soared. One of the systemic problems was that as local transit agency staffers got more involved in paratransit, they tended to do what they did best, which was run bus services. Transit staff moved from transit to paratransit and created bus fleets using conversion vans. Smaller vehicles like taxis and livery cars started to disappear and were replaced by expensive cutaway vehicles.  

To accommodate this municipal desire to act like a bus service, large national paratransit providers emerged and many of their top managers and executives were former bus people. Though paratransit had started out as a versatile, flexible, inexpensive service using small vehicles, it soon resembled the local bus system that transit folks were more familiar with. The problem wasn't the national companies, it was the service model. Transit agencies had taken a low-cost, taxi-style service and turned it into an expensive, unwieldy bus service.  

But a few oases of sanity began to appear. By the early 2000s, Denver, Houston and San Francisco, among other cities, had added a taxi paratransit option. This option offered rider choice, as well as an on-demand component. In each city, several taxi companies were part of that optional service and, over time, the number of riders choosing taxis eclipsed total riders on the traditional paratransit buses.  

In 2008, I was one of three consultants chosen by the feds to study paratransit systems throughout the nation. Our report was called “The Use of Taxicabs in Paratransit Programs.” The results were enlightening. While paratransit had grown larger and more modern, service was poorer and per-trip costs were spiraling out of control. We also learned that the alternative "Dial-a-Ride" type services using taxicabs had less complaints and lower costs. We discovered that not only did taxi trips cost a lot less, but also that most paratransit users were more satisfied with the optional Dial-a-Ride service. 

As part of our study, we spoke with riders who regularly used both the taxis and the transitional paratransit buses, and some common themes emerged: 

• Smaller vehicles provide comfort and dignity. Traveling in smaller vehicles such as ramp minivans made the riders feel more connected to the driver. They could see their trip unfolding in front of them, and they felt more dignified. One elderly wheelchair passenger said to me: “When I ride in that car, I feel like I am no different than you.”
• Smaller vehicles minimize the spectacle. This is a subject that is rarely mentioned. The size of the standard paratransit coach, combined with the warning beep when backing up, along with the whirring of the wheelchair lift, creates a spectacle that is sometimes embarrassing to the rider. This was not a new issue to me. I remember one STS user in Miami calling me one day in the 1980s. She was crying on the phone about her difficulty transitioning from taxicabs to conversion vans. She said, “When neighbors in my building offer me a ride, I always tell them ‘no thanks, I have a car coming for me.’ Now, when that huge monstrosity shows up, beeping and buzzing, I wish I could run away and hide. It is just humiliating.” You may disagree with that Miami woman’s viewpoint, but a focus group in San Francisco told me the exact same thing in 2009.
• Smaller vehicles enhance personal service. To most disabled people, a smaller vehicle is not just more dignified, but it also allows their driver more flexibility, especially when traveling to locations with small entry ways and limited parking. Further, in the paratransit rider’s opinion, the smaller vehicle provides for a closer relationship with the driver, and more ability for that driver to provide assistance at the destination itself.

Finally, municipalities have realized that when ADA riders are transported via a taxi-style service using a Dial-a-Ride format, the cost to the taxpayer is significantly less than transporting that same person in a traditional paratransit vehicle. 

Management companies have emerged that can administer these Dial-a-Ride taxi-style paratransit services, sometimes complementing and sometimes replacing traditional paratransit bus services. One trend is multiple taxi services combining to provide county-wide paratransit coverage with an independent management company coordinating and overseeing the entire program. MJM Innovations in Baltimore is one such company, and has coordinated and managed Dial-a-Ride paratransit services in Baltimore, Montgomery County, Phoenix and other locations over the past two decades. Companies like MJM can assure the quality of the taxi operations while offering transit agencies an elevated level of auditing, billing, customer service and back office functions sometimes lacking in small transportation providers.  

So there is a lot of good news all around. Paratransit has returned to its roots. Taxi-style paratransit is back. And our nation's disabled and elderly riders are the beneficiaries.   

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Joe Rubino is one the nation’s premier transit consultants and has worked on projects involving ground passenger transportation in 47 states. With a transit career spanning more than four decades, Rubino not only has great expertise in transit operations, business development, and regulatory issues, but he is also one of the most sought-after informational and motivational speakers in the industry.