United States Department of Transportation
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Understanding Paratransit: Examining Time Inefficiencies and the Efficacy of Alternative Modes for Persons with Disability
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2024-09-01
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[PDF-3.38 MB]
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Edition:Final Report
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Abstract:The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) (1990) mandates that paratransit services should be comparable to fixed-route systems. However, with only 5% of the population utilizing public transit, this comparison does not adequately highlight the disparities between persons with disabilities and those without. This paper examines how the travel times of paratransit trips compare with a counterfactual car trip using trip data from Denver’s Regional Transportation District’s Access-a-Ride service from January 2019 – June 2021. Through a hotspot and regression analysis, we reveal that paratransit trips experience more inefficient travel times than an equivalent car trip. Demand for paratransit trips is largely located in more suburban cities where housing is relatively affordable but access to destinations via urban infrastructure is relatively low. Paratransit efficiency decreases for specific groups, such as females, older adults, and cash paying riders, and for trips during peak travel times or during inclement weather. During the pandemic, paratransit trip efficiency increased likely because of COVID-19 safety restrictions that reduced other service inefficiencies. This analysis suggests that agencies should focus on improving paratransit services through adopting tools that eliminate pre-travel inefficiencies and leverage the spatial and temporal patterns to optimize operational efficiency.
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