Paratransit

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Paratransit is an alternative mode of flexible passenger transportation that does not follow fixed routes or schedules. Typically vans or mini-buses are used to provide paratransit service, but also share taxis and jitneys are important providers. Paratransit services may vary considerably on the degree of flexibility they provide their customers. At their simplest they may consist of a taxi or small bus that will run along a more or less defined route and then stop to pick up or discharge passengers on request. At the other end of the spectrum -- fully Demand-Responsive Transport -- the most flexible paratransit systems offer on-demand call-up door-to-door service from any origin to any destination in a service area. Paratransit services are operated by public transit agencies, community groups or not-for-profit corporations, and for-profit private companies or operators.

Over the last three decades the word 'paratransit' has migrated and taken on two somewhat separate broad sets of meaning and application. The first is the more general meaning as set out above, and which was extensively documented and demonstrated in projects starting in the early seventies with the publication by the Urban Institute of the 1974 book [Para-transit: Neglected options for urban mobility], ISBN 0-87766-121-9, followed one year later but the first international overview, [Paratransit: Survey of International Experience and Prospects], Eric Britton et al. EcoPlan International. U.S. Dept. of Transportation, Urban Mass Transportation Administration, 1975.

These are still extremely important in many parts of the world, but by the early eighties and in particular in North America, the term began to be used increasingly to describe special transport services for the handicapped , and in this respect has became a sub-sector and business in its own right.

1 Paratransit service for people with disabilities
2 Future of paratransit
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Paratransit service for people with disabilities

There are many examples of paratransit systems operated by governmental or non-for-profit community agencies, as well as by private paratransit companies. Laidlaw International, Inc. is the largest provider of contract paratransit services in the United States and Canada. In Hong Kong, Rehabus service is provided by the Hong Kong Society for Rehabilitation.

Pace paratransit vehicle.

Before passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), many fixed route bus systems were not interested in paratransit services and in buying buses accessible to people using wheelchairs. The ADA requires new transit buses be accessible to people using wheelchairs (by lift or ramp) and have at least two spaces to secure wheelchairs in each bus. Paratransit service grew in the United States following the Americans with Disabilities Act which required complementary paratransit be provided alongside most public transit services in the United States which receive funding from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). ADA complementary paratransit service is for people who are unable to ride buses by virtue of a disabling condition.

Following the implementation of ADA paratransit service, there is growing interest in service strategies that offer effective and efficient flexible services. Transit operators increasingly need to serve markets for which conventional fixed route bus and rail modes are too expensive, inefficient, or inflexible. Many operators are finding that flexible services have an important role to play in serving low-density areas, dispersed trip patterns, and travel by seniors and people with disabilities. However, the expense of serving geographically dispersed areas means that paratransit is often unable to meet the travel demand of persons unable to drive, leading many paratransit providers to require pickup appointments weeks in advance.

Most vehicles used in this form of paratransit today are specially equipped with wheelchair lifts or ramps to facilitate access. This service allows many people with disabilities to have jobs by providing transportation to and from their workplaces.

[edit] Future of paratransit

As the problems of transport and the environment in and around cities mount, and the old systems such as private cars and traditional public transport are starting to show their limits, the potential for more flexible small vehicle systems of many types is just starting to emerge.

Since (non-medical) paratransit systems in much of the world are often operated by individuals and small business who turn out to be much harder to control that traditional public transport operators, there is often a fair tension between the operators and the public sector authorities. In the past, and in many of the developing countries today, there has been a trend to try to ban paratransit operators (on the grounds of combinations of poor vehicle maintenance, various forms of illegality, unsafe driving, practices that undercut the public carriers). More often than not however the paratransit operators win out since they offer a source not only of much needed services but also jobs and other forms of support for the local economy. But this battle continues to this day.

A movement to provide a more future oriented view of this class of services under the name xTransit has recently gotten underway which describes itself as follows. "xTransit: Getting people in and around cities in road vehicles, smaller than full sized buses, driven by real human beings, dynamically shared with others, and aided by state of the art communications technologies -- and all of that as no less than the only way to offer "car like" mobility in most of our 21st century cities without killing the cities themselves (the old mobility way)."

Flexible services are represented by a wide variety of innovative services now in use increasingly in North America and Europe. Intelligent transportation systems technologies, primarily GPS, mobile data terminals, digital mobile radios and cell phones, and dispatching and call reservation software, are used to help implement flexible services and to improve the operations of paratransit services of all kinds. It would seem clear that the key interface between these small vehicle services and their customers in the future is likely to be the mobile phone.