MTA expanding its E-Hail pilot to 3,600 paratransit customers beginning in August
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is expanding its E-Hail pilot, tripling its participants to 3,600 paratransit customers beginning in August. E-Hail is an on-demand service that offers Access-A-Ride (AAR) customers the opportunity to book trips in real-time through an existing taxi or for-hire vehicle service.
The next phase of this program is set to run through February 2024 and could be extended through August 2024 after a six-month review. The expansion will be launched with a larger, more representative sample of AAR customers with a $4 co-pay and has two programs:
- Distance option- A greater per trip subsidy
- High-volume option- A greater number of subsidized trips per month
The distance-based program will provide up to 25 trips a month for up to $40 each and the high volume-based program will provide up to 40 trips a month for up to $25 each. Customers can travel further than their allocation of $25 or $40 and pay the balance of the trip cost.
The customer co-pay will be fully applied to the cost of the trip, allowing customers to take a $29 trip or $44 trip before paying any additional cost. E-Hail trips will be provided by Uber, Arro, Corporate Transportation Group and the Drivers Cooperative, with the potential for one or two more on-demand providers to be brought on later.
“We recognize the convenience greater flexibility in scheduling trips provides for Access-A-Ride customers,” said New York City Transit President Richard Davey. “We established the goal to make improvements to the E-Hail program in the Faster, Cleaner, Safer plan and this next step will allow us to further evaluate how we can offer alternative options to Access-A-Ride customers to improve the paratransit experience.”
“I know firsthand how E-Hail on-demand can significantly improve our customers' lives," said MTA Chief Accessibility Officer Quemuel Arroyo. "I am glad to see us taking these steps to find a sustainable way forward for our E-Hail pilot that can serve more AAR customers while continuing to invest in our core paratransit service, providing thousands of daily trips.”
Federal regulations allow agencies to charge twice the fixed-route fare for paratransit services, which would mean a charge of up to $5.50 for AAR’s traditional services of reserving a trip a day in advance. The MTA has elected to match the subway/bus fare of $2.75, with the authority noting E-Hail is a premium service, much like express buses, and the expansion’s $4 co-pay falls below the amount other organizations charge for their standard paratransit service.
The additional 2,400 participants joining the pilot will be selected at random from AAR’s customer base based on factors such as borough, disability and age. The parameters set for this second phase are based on the findings from Phase 1 and structured comparably to on-demand paratransit services from agencies across the country. MTA says the trip and subsidy allocations will impact a minority of Phase 1 participants, with only 14 percent of participants having taken 40 or more trips per month on average in spring 2023 and 22 percent having taken 25 trips or more.
“We are excited to expand the E-Hail pilot, bringing on-demand booking and same-day service to more AAR riders, allowing us to better study the program’s benefits and understand potential costs and the additional funding that would be needed to extend to all paratransit customers,” said MTA Vice President of Paratransit Chris Pangilinan. “We have made major progress in reliability with improvements in on-time performance and customer satisfaction. This expansion complements those efforts, as we explore a structure for an on-demand service option that offers our riders an unprecedented level of flexibility and spontaneity while being financially sustainable.”
By establishing a set number of trips per month and MTA subsidy per trip, the authority can expand the benefits of E-Hail to 2,400 additional customers, with an adjusted budget of $17.6 million for the E-Hail pilot, compared to the estimated $16 million allocated in the first phase. Additionally, the authority notes most Phase 1 participants will continue to benefit from the on-demand service with little to no modification in their travel patterns. Phase 1 participants will be assigned to a program based on their travel patterns in the first phase.
Participants in the E-Hail pilot will continue to have access to the standard AAR service, which has no limit on travel within the AAR service area at the current transit fare of $2.75. The on-demand service is intended to serve as an additional option to traditional paratransit service, enhancing flexibility and spontaneity for customers.
The next phase of the E-Hail on-demand pilot aims to provide a more reliable forecast of the cost of expanding the E-Hail program and more detailed data for program evaluation through testing of a distance-based program and frequency-based program.
Phase 1 findings
The E-Hail pilot originally launched in 2017 to 200 customers and expanded to 1,200 customers shortly thereafter. The pilot allowed paratransit customers to book rides on-demand through the app for $2.75 a trip with no limits on trips or cost. The pilot was launched to explore how to provide additional, flexible transportation options for paratransit customers above and beyond what is federally mandated.
From Phase 1, the median number of trips per month was 17.5 and the median cost per trip was $40. Out of the 1,200 customers in the pilot, as many as 21 people took over 150 trips in one month and the top six percent of participants used 50 percent of the pilot's budget.
Phase 1 findings pointed to the program not being financially sustainable and not an efficient use of the MTA's resources, with an unlimited number of trips and no limit on the cost per customer. The authority says lessons from the first phase of the pilot, along with studying the progress of other paratransit systems, assisted in guiding the parameters for this expansion, with a defined number of trips allocated per month and a set MTA subsidy allocated per trip.
