Sharing the Costs of Human Services Transportation

With rising fuel prices and limited budgets, transportation providers are more frequently being asked to work cooperatively with other agencies to ensure the most cost-effective service delivery. This situation is particularly true for transportation for human services needs: public transportation providers and human services agencies are being asked to coordinate their efforts to ensure maximum productivity at minimum cost. Over the years, one commonly reported hindrance to coordination efforts is the lack of a common, systematic approach to documentation of transportation services and their costs. Many studies found that agencies that provide transportation services need better cost and service accounting to support coordination efforts. This paper results from work conducted for TCRP that described how costs should be allocated and shared among all stakeholders. The results of this project include a common framework for recording and reporting of transportation costs and services, whether they are provided by transit agencies or human services transportation providers and whether the transportation providers are large or small operations. Other products of the TCRP project include a transportation services cost-sharing model (developed in Excel format) and instructions on how to apply that model to community transportation services.