On Friday June 10th. 2022, professionals representing the Transit Industry as well as Economic Development, Aging Services, Service for the Blind, Veterans Affairs, Department of Health and Human Services, and the Mississippi Department of Transportation, among others, participated in an Issue Focused Meeting sponsored by the National Center for Mobility Management with funding from the Federal Transit Administration.
Hosted by Southern Connect Regional Coordination at the Maritime and Seafood Industry Museum in Biloxi, Mississippi the group focused on improving access to transportation resources utilizing technology. Participants discussed needs of the community, the resources that are available to them and strategized how they might collaborate and use technology to offer a more comprehensive and coordinated tool(s) to improve citizens connectivity to transportation.
“Being my first visit to Biloxi and the State of Mississippi, I was awestruck by the continuing struggle to overcome the historic devastation of hurricane Katrina and the challenges this region continues to face in rebuilding and moving on. It was refreshing to see the energy of the people representing so many diverse needs in the room look forward with plans to improve the accessibility and connectivity of public transportation and in turn, the quality of life of its community,” Said NCMM Deputy Director Bill Wagner.
Southern Connect serves a 15-county region and for Donna Baily, Southern Connects Mobility Manager to pull people in from across the region and across the state was quite an accomplishment. The event was a way for different organizations to come together to share ideas on ways to increase services using technology to allow everyone easier access to reliable transportation options. We are grateful to have had the opportunity to receive guidance from you on how to identify needs in our region/state, and how to use that knowledge to develop and implement a one call/one click center.
“Our Southern Connect regional partners are fired up and ready to get to work”, stated Deshella Butler, Executive Director, DJ Transit Inc. Southern Connects will continue follow up from this meeting with scheduled meetings to develop timeline, identify funding and collaboratively move towards the development of a strategy to implement a comprehensive resource for accessing transportation.
“Friday was wonderful! We truly appreciate you both for bringing the high energy and very productive meeting to South Mississippi”, said Donna Baily, “Southern Connect is planning a conference call with partners in a couple of weeks to begin a plan of action for resource development and learning how the one call/one click tool could be a reality for us!”
Southern Connect was one of six projects selected from across the nation to be awarded a national grant by the Federal Transit Association from the National Center for Mobility Management.
Have more mobility news that we should be reading and sharing? Let us know! Reach out to Sage Kashner (kashner@ctaa.org).
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