The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) received a 2020 Mobility for All Pilot Program (M4A) grant from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). This program aims to improve mobility and access to public transportation for older adults, people with disabilities, and individuals of low income.
ODOT’s Public Transportation Division (PTD) used this grant to address the need for a standardized and computer-readable ways to describe rider eligibility and service provider capacity.
PTD contracted with Full Path Transit Technology to develop proposed transit data formats to make it easier for people to gain full access to specialized transportation services, improving the usefulness of transit services through open data, and addressing equity goals laid out in the Oregon Public Transportation Plan.
The project addressed the numerous, and often locally specific, factors that are not captured in existing data standards for fixed route transit. The proposed GTFS extensions describe the various factors that can determine access to transit services, particularly specialized transportation services, such as demand response. The significant gap in data standards for specialized transportation are addressed by broadly defining the kinds of limitation these services have for rider eligibility (who is allowed to use the service) and eligible trip purpose (the reason(s) for taking the trip).
Acknowledgements
This work would not have been possible without the M4A grant from the Federal Transit Administration. In addition, the project received technical assistance provided by the National Aging and Disability Transportation Center (NADTC), a partnership of Easterseals, Inc., and the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging.
The Expert Panel and Technical Working Group of the ODOT-Full Path M4A project made tremendous contributions to this project, and the success of the project is due to the talent and insights of Full Path Transit Technologies.
ODOT staff received support from Karyn Criswell, Administrator, Public Transportation Division; Jennifer Sellers, Passenger Rail and Multimodal Network Manager; and Matthew Barnes