Americans with Disabilities Act Cost Savings and Increased Fixed-Route Ridership through Transit Agency Travel Training

Abstract

The costs of Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) complementary paratransit have risen steadily in the aggregate and on a per trip basis since the act's passage in 1990. Annual costs in 2011 alone were estimated at $3.5 billion nationally. Public transportation providers increasingly use an array of strategies to control costs and manage demand for this expensive service. The Riverside Transit Agency (RTA) travel training program, for persons with disabilities and for older adults in Riverside, California, documented dial-a-ride savings at more than $342,000 from the program's first year of operation. Data presented included GFI-reported trips, which made it possible to monitor actual rider patterns, subsequent to the training, over time. The use of fare media reporting to calculate savings enabled a transit agency to document rather than to estimate cost savings. This paper reports the findings of a case study of the experience of 207 individuals with disabilities who continued to ride a fixed route, and constituted 74% of all persons that RTA's Freedom to Go Program trained to do so since it commenced late in 2012. Although the use varied greatly, on average more than 20 fixed-route trips per month were taken by program participants 7 months after initial training. Trainees included persons who had been ADA dial-a-ride users and others who were likely to have become users but did not. The study focused on the training of persons with disabilities, and reported on trainees’ fixed-route use, including other outcomes associated with the reduction of ADA complementary paratransit costs. RTA developed an increased understanding of barriers to use by its ADA riders. The paper discusses the import of travel training provided by transit agencies. Related opportunities are identified, as well as the ability to report actual, documented cost savings.