Transdev Awarded Seven-Year Contract for Paratransit Brokerage in Boston
Transdev has announced a seven-year deal with the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority to manage paratransit brokerage services. This adds a key contract to the company’s portfolio of non-emergency medical transit contracts in the U.S.
Starting June 1, IntelliRide, Transdev’s brokerage services group, will begin managing The RIDE Access Center, overseeing booking, scheduling and dispatching of paratransit trips for The RIDE, MBTA’s paratransit service. Transdev will also oversee the trip fulfillment and customer care performance of the MBTA’s three contractors who manage the drivers and fleets that provide trips.
As part of its plan to improve service performance and operational efficiency, IntelliRide will immediately offer higher wages to recruit and retain great talent and reduce staff turnover. It will also bring all dispatch locations into one single building to improve communication, coordination and response time. Transdev is committed to integrating passenger and employee feedback as part of a continuous improvement plan. Transdev also operates buses for Boston Public Schools.
“Transdev has a great history with the City of Boston and the MBTA. We are looking forward to expanding that relationship to paratransit brokerage services with IntelliRide,” said Dick Alexander, Transdev’s executive vice president of business development and innovation. “Our suite of dispatch technology platforms, combined with our intimate knowledge of paratransit operations, will help improve how passengers experience paratransit trips throughout the city. We are looking forward to getting started.”
The RIDE is the MBTA’s door-to-door, shared-ride paratransit service for people with disabilities who are unable to use the MBTA’s fixed-route transit system. The network covers a 700-square-mile area in Brookline, Cambridge, and parts of Boston, and has grown to one of the largest paratransit operations in the country, serving nearly two million passenger trips per year.
IntelliRide plans to build a strong foundation of collaboration through joint problem solving with the MBTA and the service operators to drive innovation and improved service quality, while also engaging with all employees who make a unique contribution to the company’s success. Across the country, Transdev’s IntelliRide group provides millions of paratransit trips to leading cities including San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Baltimore, and Nassau County, New York.
