Rural Transportation Conference Participants’ Opinions and Concerns Pertaining to Transit for Older Adults

Mobility remains a vital part of the well-being of rural-living, older adults and transportation disadvantaged persons. This study seeks to identify research and policy needs related to rural transit for older people and the transportation disadvantaged. To obtain this goal, the multidisciplinary study team conducted two activities as part of a 2016 rural transportation conference: a survey of conference attendees and open discussion to elicit additional information. Results suggest the attendees felt the need for rural transit for older adults would continue to increase with public and private funding being critical issues. Respondents had similar opinions about challenges and opportunities across socioeconomic characteristics including age, gender, political leaning, rurality, and organizational function. This suggests an opportunity to mobilize support for public transportation.

Validation of the Paratransit Skills Assessment for Paratransit Travel and Mobility of Adults on the Autism Spectrum

The Paratransit Skills Assessment (PaSA) was developed in 2011 to assist individuals on the autism spectrum in accessing public paratransit services. Paratransit is a demand-responsive service that often has variable schedules and routes, and may be designated for transportation-disadvantaged populations. It is a criterion-referenced assessment which was designed with three hierarchical sections for the three different paratransit service types as well as a trip planning and scheduling section. It is composed of 37 discrete tasks that are used to make a determination if an individual can use paratransit independently. This paper is on the validation process. The validation process was conducted with 98 study subjects who participated in the PaSA, of which 86 were retested, with 60 retests with non-paratransit users through in-vehicle trips, and 26 retests with current users through interviews about their revealed experiences in using paratransit services. The results indicate that PaSA is able to predict the capabilities of individuals on the autism spectrum to use paratransit services with a 96.4% accuracy and a correlation coefficient of 0.995. The study subjects were found to be non-homogeneous in abilities and skills while the outcomes were found to be highly to moderately reliable. The research findings including the high accuracy rate provide validation that the PaSA is a reliable method for predicting an individual’s ability to use paratransit services independently. However, individuals that were found to only have the six basic skills required for independent travel were recommended to have additional training prior to independent travel. These validation results can be useful for transit providers, transportation experts, and professionals working on issues with transportation-disadvantaged populations.

Sustainable Transportation Development

Urban sprawl combined with low density development causes unsustainable development patterns including accessibility and mobility problems, especially for those who do not have the capacity to own a vehicle or access to quality public transport services. Sustainable transportation development is crucial in order to solve transport disadvantage problems in urban settlements. People who are affected by these problems are referred to as ‘transportation disadvantaged’. Transportation disadvantage is a multi-dimensional problem that combines socio-economics, transportation and spatial characteristics or dimensions. However, a substantial number of transportation disadvantage studies so far only focus on the socio-economic and transportation dimensions, while the latter dimension of transportation disadvantage has been neglected. This chapter investigates the spatial dimension of transportation disadvantage by comparing the travel capabilities of residents and their accessibility levels with land use characteristics. The analysis of the study identifies significant land use characteristics with travel inability, and is useful for identifying the transportation disadvantaged population.

Sustainable Transportation Development

Urban sprawl combined with low density development causes unsustainable development patterns including accessibility and mobility problems, especially for those who do not have the capacity to own a vehicle or access to quality public transport services. Sustainable transportation development is crucial in order to solve transport disadvantage problems in urban settlements. People who are affected by these problems are referred to as ‘transportation disadvantaged’. Transportation disadvantage is a multi-dimensional problem that combines socio-economics, transportation and spatial characteristics or dimensions. However, a substantial number of transportation disadvantage studies so far only focus on the socio-economic and transportation dimensions, while the latter dimension of transportation disadvantage has been neglected. This chapter investigates the spatial dimension of transportation disadvantage by comparing the travel capabilities of residents and their accessibility levels with land use characteristics. The analysis of the study identifies significant land use characteristics with travel inability, and is useful for identifying the transportation disadvantaged population.