For businesses, agencies, and organizations which rely on vehicles for moving people or cargo, making service calls, or delivering and picking up cargo, fleet management is a key element for effective and cost-efficient operations. Fleet management services, which can be handled in-house or contracted to a fleet and asset management company, can include a number of different functions, including vehicle maintenance, vehicle financing and acquisition, optimizing fuel efficiency, managing driver behavior, and heading up safety efforts and legal compliance.
For many transit riders, knowing that their bus or light rail will arrive on time both at the beginning of their trip and at their destination can be a huge factor in choosing their mode of transportation, as school classes, work, sports practice, and games, as well as social gatherings all have scheduling expectations. Nobody wants to be late for their commitments, nor do they want to wait overly long for their return trip, so improving on-time performance in a transit service is one way to improve rider satisfaction and potentially increase ridership. Here are a few general directions to head in for improving on-time performance.
Paratransit services are a vital element of modern mobility for many people, who rely on them to get to work, to school, or to medical appointments and more. However, like other areas in public transit today, the paratransit sector is also facing a number of challenges that will need to be met with creative and effective responses in order to remain useful and relevant in 2018 and beyond.
In order to increase ridership on public transit in the age of the car, agencies need to be willing to explore a number of different approaches. Some of these tactics may be used on the back end of the operations, such as scheduling and route-setting, some on the customer-facing processes, some on the marketing and communications side, and some on the infrastructure and facilities end. Like many aspects of life and business, there is probably no one magic pill that will cure low ridership, but rather a mix of strategies and tactics that can all work together to boost ridership.
What would be an easy and straightforward task for many people, such as going to a doctor's visit or to pick up groceries, can be a huge ordeal for the elderly and disabled members of our population. Without a car of their own, and the ability and resources to drive it, getting from one location to another within a city without hiring a driver will most likely require public transportation. However, a regular city bus may not work for some disabled or elderly, due to first-mile and last-mile transport issues with getting to or from a stop, or scheduling limitations, or other factors, in which case paratransit services can step in to fill that important need.