Frequently Asked Questions
These FAQs do not have the force and effect of law and are not meant to bind the public in any way. These FAQs are intended only to provide clarity to the public regarding existing requirements under the law or agency policies. FTA recipients and subrecipients should refer to FTA’s statutes and regulations for applicable requirements.
Answer:
Public policies at the federal, state, and local levels can foster coordination through funding requirements, offering incentives for improvements in coordination, and requiring transportation and human service providers to demonstrate strategies and efforts to coordinate resources at the local level.
Interested organizations and individuals can contact their state to ascertain what plans and actions are being planned and implemented for human service transportation coordination at the state and local levels.
Locally, consumers should be actively involved in the planning and development of human service transportation services, including the development of policies and programs at all levels.
Efforts to expand the availability and accessibility of transportation services should cut across age and disability boundaries and seek to include such rider groups as older adults, people with disabilities, and individuals with lower income.
Answer:
- Greater access to funds is provided by:
- Tapping a wider range of funding programs
- Accessing a greater variety of staff and facilities
- Employing more specialized and skilled staff
- More cost-effective use of resources is created through:
- Productivity increases
- Economies of scale
- Eliminating waste caused by duplicated efforts
- More centralized planning and management of resources
- Greater productivities and efficiencies will:
- Fill service gaps within communities by offering services to additional geographic areas and individuals within existing budgets.
- Provide additional trips for community members, thus enhancing their quality of life.
- Generate cost savings to some participating agencies in special forms of coordinated transportation service
- More centralized management of existing resources results in greater visibility for transportation services to:
- Riders
- Agencies needing trips for their clients
- The community
- Funders
- And results in:
- Reduced consumer confusion about how to access services
- Clear lines of authority
- More professional (comfortable, reliable, and safe) transportation services
Answer:
Coordinating individual human service transportation programs makes the most efficient use of limited transportation resources by avoiding duplication caused by overlapping individual program efforts and encouraging the use and sharing of existing community resources. In communities where coordination is made a priority, citizens benefit from more extensive service, lower costs and easier access to transportation. Coordination can improve overall mobility within a community, particularly when human service agencies are each providing transportation to their own clients. It works by eliminating the inefficiencies within disparate operations and service patterns that often result from a multiplicity of providers. Greater efficiency helps to stretch the limited (and often insufficient) funding and personnel resources of these agencies. When appropriately applied, coordination can lead to significant reductions of operating costs (per trip) for transportation providers. People in need of transportation also profit from enhanced transportation and higher quality services when operations are coordinated.
Answer:
Human services transportation (HST) includes a broad range of transportation service options designed to meet the needs of transportation disadvantaged populations, including older adults, people with disabilities, and/or individuals with lower income. Individuals have different needs and may require different transportation services depending on their needs, the size of the community they live in, and the options available.
Public transit, available for all, is one form of HST. Other HST providers serve limited populations such as agency or institutional clients or schools. HST providers include public and private providers of transportation services, social service agencies, community health centers, aging and disability organizations, public health departments, behavioral or mental health centers, criminal justice programs, veteran’s transportation programs, vocational rehabilitation programs, schools, advocacy groups, faith-based communities, and more.
HST includes, but is not limited to:
- Dial-a-ride (i.e., responding to individual door-to-door requests)
- Human service agency transportation
- Mileage reimbursement to volunteers or program participants
- Neighborhood shuttles
- Non-emergency medical transportation funded by Medicaid or other sources
- Public transit (including paratransit)
- Transportation vouchers (e.g., transit passes, taxis, etc.)
- Volunteer transportation services
- Escorted (i.e., door-through-door or hand-to-hand) transportation services
Human service agencies that provide transportation services have uniquely different missions. One agency may provide employment services while another may focus on the delivery of health care services as their primary mission. Coordinating HST can be highly beneficial to local communities.
Answer:
The Coordinating Council on Access & Mobility (CCAM) is an interagency federal national initiative that supports states and their localities in developing coordinated human service delivery systems. In addition to state coordination grants, CCAM provides state and local agencies a transportation-coordination and planning self-assessment tool, help along the way, technical assistance, and other resources to help their communities succeed.
Answer:
Executive Order 13330, signed by President Bush on February 24, 2004, established the Interagency Transportation Coordinating Council on Access and Mobility (CCAM), which was originally chaired by former Secretary of Transportation Norman Y. Mineta. The Council’s purpose is to coordinate the 130 federal programs across nine federal departments that provide funding to be used in support of human services transportation. The Council is comprised of 11 CCAM members, including the U.S. Departments of Transportation, Health and Human Services, Labor, Education, Housing and Urban Affairs, Agriculture, Justice, and Interior and the Veterans Affairs, the Social Security Administration, and the National Council on Disabilities.