CTS WEBINAR: STRATEGIES FOR ENHANCING RURAL COMMUNITY TRANSIT

This webinar will feature two presentations focused on enhancing public transit in rural communities.

Tom Fisher will describe how researchers at the U’s Minnesota Design Center worked with the leadership of Wabasha, Minnesota, to evaluate how the city could leverage its underutilized transportation assets and its underemployed transportation personnel as a community based, on-demand transit system. As part of this effort, Fisher’s team looked at how people are finding transportation through informal and social media channels, explored how the city could support and enhance that activity, and identified the regulatory and risk barriers to fully using the transportation assets that exist in small, rural communities.

Elliott McFadden will highlight MnDOT’s Mobility as a Service (MaaS) project, with a focus on how the agency is bringing MaaS technology to rural public transit agencies and their riders.

The webinar, held in conjunction with a CTS Transportation Planning and the Economy Council meeting, is part of CTS’s Rural Needs, Statewide Answers: Improving Transportation for All thematic focus in 2024.