ODOT is developing new data standards to increase visibility of and ease of access to specialized transportation services, including demand response and dial-a-ride. Join our webinar on August 25^th from 1:00 – 2:30 pm PST to learn more.

In June 2020, ODOT received a U.S. Department of Transportation Mobility for All grant to improve mobility and access to public transportation for older adults, people with disabilities, and individuals of low income.  Our project has focused on creating standardized and computer-readable data related to rider eligibility and service capability by developing new "extensions" to General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) data.

The premise for this work? Public transportation is more useful when people can easily find out whether the service can take them where they want to go, at the time they want to travel, with the items they need to have, and knowing whether the vehicle is going to arrive as planned. Finding out about demand response services is labor-intensive, and the burden often falls on riders themselves to figure out what exists, whether they qualify for a specific type of transportation, and whether a provider can meet their service needs. Additionally, transit agencies have difficulty communicating their services, especially specialized services, to the public.

These new transit standards will allow standardized and computer-readable ways to describe rider eligibility and service provider capacity. GTFS-eligibilities addresses how a person’s individual characteristics (e.g., age, disability status, residence, employment, or registration in a program) may affect their access to specialized public transportation services. GTFS-capabilities will describe a transportation provider’s ability to meet a rider’s needs (e.g., whether the provider offers services such as door-to-door service, door-through-door service, stretcher service, mobility device accommodation, and bariatric capability). Such information is currently available to the public in analog or one-off digital formats only.

We will share the project findings in a free public webinar – discussing the challenges, how this work will continue, and how it can benefit transit agencies’ in providing specialized transportation services.

Click here to register for the webinar!