Paratransit

TRB Special Report 164: Paratransit are the proceedings of a conference that addressed problems in the implementation and application of promising techniques within those major functional areas commonly thought to be relevant to paratransit application.

The papers highlighted the following alternatives: increased use of high-occupancy modes such as car pools, subscription buses, and jitneys for high-density home-to-work travel, especially when used to supplement conventional transit in rush hours; increased paratransit feeder services designed to collect and distribute transit passengers in areas of low demand density, thereby improving the coverage and levels of service of both paratransit and public transit; well-regulated paratransit services, particularly taxis, demand-responsive buses, and jitneys used to serve short business and shopping trips within business and commercial districts; and increased use of a mix of paratransit services for low-density suburban and nonurbanized areas without conventional public transit.

Workshops and their reports were structured around 6 major issues: the role of paratransit in an integrated urban transportation system; the effect of governmental capital and operating assistance on the development of paratransit; institutional changes needed to foster the development of paratransit; paratransit in small communities and nonurbanized areas; operation issues for paratransit: productivity, vehicles, dispatching and management; and the role of paratransit in serving the needs of special groups. Included in this publication are four state-of-the-art papers covering the spectrum of transportation options and services broadly categorized as paratransit, the development and organization of paratransit services and systems, and the empirical analyses of the operation of several innovative paratransit applications.