San Luis Obispo - Caltrans - State of California

SAN LUIS OBISPO REGION
COORDINATED HUMAN SERVICES-PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION PLAN
This Plan identifies, in Chapters 3 and 4, specific areas of individualized need for segments of
the target population that must be addressed on some level to improve mobility overall. Public
transit and human service agencies and organizations must find ways in which to meet needs
consumers describe, and agency/organization personnel enumerate on their behalf. Actions and
strategies developed as elements of this plan have been designed to improve the ability of
operators of specialized transportation to serve a higher level of individualized trip needs with
greater efficiency.
6.4.4 Improving Communication Between Drivers, Dispatchers and Passengers and with
Prospective Riders
Improving communications between everyone involved in the provision of specialized
transportation services can expand the capability of agencies and organizations to address
individualized needs. Chapter 4 Stakeholder Outreach discusses the need for improved
communication with persons who might be using public transit, in its many forms.
Improved communication applies during the ride or in the process of obtaining a ride. This
suggests continuing and differently focused driver training to sensitize both public fixed-route
and paratransit drivers to recognize and facilitate transportation for persons with special needs.
In addition, technological tools may improve the capability of the system to strengthen the
connection between the rider, the vehicle and dispatch in a real-time situation. This will serve to
minimize long waits, absent information about the vehicle’s arrival time. Dispatchers and call
takers may require additional training to assist high-needs consumers more effectively and to be
sensitized to their requirements.
Capacity building then, for specialized transportation, has two purposes:
1. To increase the quantity of what is available; and
2. To improve the characteristics of what is available, whether in terms of measures of
cost-effectiveness, getting more for the dollars expended, or in terms of the types
of service, greater responsiveness to the target populations.
Both efforts can translate into more cost-effective programs with combined resources getting
more for the dollars spent, and into more diversified approaches to meeting needs – different
types of service in response to different target population needs.
Capacity building becomes then an array of activities: training and professional development,
use of technologies to achieve increased efficiency and effectiveness, and all possible methods
of expanding the quantities of service available.
6.4.5 Areas Where Specialized Transit Demand May Exist
Chapter 4 details a number of corridors and areas in the county where additional demand
exists. These include temporal as well as geographic areas of need.
Service Hours and Days
As has been noted, expansion of operating hours of the county’s inter-community transit
network is indicated where it can serve the trip needs between communities falling very early
in the morning or later in the evening. Saturday service and Sunday service is indicated, for
selected work trips, such as those required by hospitality industry workers where
105
OCTOBER 2007