San Luis Obispo - Caltrans - State of California

SAN LUIS OBISPO REGION
COORDINATED HUMAN SERVICES-PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION PLAN
needs and requirements, and focus their day-to-day efforts on addressing and resolving issues
on behalf of the individual, as characterized in Chapter 4’s Stakeholder Outreach findings.
Public transit is more attentive to “mass” needs only in relation to providing service, with
considerably less awareness of the individual.
Since the day-to-day business objectives of these two public service industries differ, it is logical
to find that they speak different “languages”, interpret, process and respond to things differently.
For example, public transit operators talk in terms of one-way passenger trips, and apply
performance measures of cost per hour and passengers per hour. Human service agencies
speak of client days, per diem rates and often understand trips as vehicle trips rather than
passenger trips. These differences can and do make communication challenging.
One such difference in understanding relating to service provision is the drive to greater service
efficiencies that a shared-ride system represents and the need to pick up several passengers in
a given hour. This can contrast sharply with the individualized orientation of human and social
services personnel to meet the needs of a single consumer who may have had a difficult
dialysis session, and is more frail than usual, or the individual whose medication regime makes
waiting in the sunlight particularly difficult. This is certainly a different perspective than is held
by public transit.
These disparities reflect different value systems, consistent with the different core missions of
each industry. These issues must gradually be addressed in the development of coordination
projects that will work effectively between systems. At a minimum, it is important to establish a
“translator” who can work with these two systems, understanding each sufficiently to navigate in
both and to design responsive, cost-effective coordinated transportation programs.
6.4.2 Capacity Needs
Chapter 3’s demand estimation has identified the public transit trips currently being provided in
the region. Human service transportation programs also exist, notably the CTSA services
provided under contract to various organizations and others with varied methods of service
provision that include staff members driving consumers in their own car with mileage
reimbursement, volunteer-based programs, directly operated services and various scenarios for
contracted or taxi-based service provision, including those described in Chapter 3’s stakeholder
survey findings.
However, the assessment also shows that some of the needs of the target population are not
being met. In fact, the needs described exceed the services now in place. This mandates then
that the existing network of transportation services must be re-configured to handle the everincreasing
need, as the San Luis Obispo region realizes continuing population growth in the
future. The potential to coordinate and leverage transportation resources is a logical next step.
6.4.3 Meeting Individualized Needs
One of the main purposes of this Plan is to recommend ways that public transit and human
service agencies can work together to develop plans and projects to meet the needs of seniors,
disabled persons and low income individuals. Providing service to some difficult-to-serve subsegments
of the target population (e.g. frail, chronically ill and disabled individuals) is the
highest level of individualized service that can be offered to consumers, will require a significant
commitment by public transit and human and social services and resources.
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OCTOBER 2007