Transportation: S. Watts

2014 Meetings

  • December
  •  October
  •  May
  •  March
    •  Agenda
              • Re-group – Sue
              • Status Update – Sue
              • Review of Work Accomplished – Sue, Marg and Keith
              • Rural Institute – Keith
              • Bancroft Summit – Marg
              • Webinar Series – Sue, Marg, Alison
              • Next Step
              • New MembersNext Meeting

      BACKGROUND MATERIAL

    EKIOC TRANSPORTATION PILOT- ANALYSIS
    Summary
    EKIOC launched a transportation pilot to address the transportation needs of people in Rideau Lakes, Westport, Merrickville/Wolford, Seeley’s Bay and Lyndhurst and to foster collaboration among organizations to create a coordinated service that builds on existing resources to service all citizens of Leeds and Grenville. The chosen pilot area resulted from the idea that this geographical area was without any mode of transportation and is Lanark Transportation Association’s closest neighbour.

    Commencing February 1, 2010 until January 31, 2011, the EKIOC Transportation Pilot was delivered by Lanark Transportation Association (LTA) utilizing a business and cost recovery model. This included having a staff of drivers paid by the hour and vans that were used to transport clients. Van drivers were paid $13 per hour from the time they left their driveway until the time they returned.  They were paid for wait time.  Van drivers were considered ’employees’ and subject to income tax, CPP and other deductions.  When required LTA would access volunteer drivers who were reimbursed .43 cents per kilometer for their mileage for the distance covered from when left their driveway until they returned. A client was either invoiced directly for the trip (known as independents) or the agency that had referred the client was invoiced. Funding for the administrative aspects of this portion of the pilot was provided by the Joint Services of the United Counties ($15,000) and EKIOC Member Agencies ($9,000). Joint Services also donated the two vans for use during the pilot.

    On April 5, 2010, The Ontario Trillium Foundation granted this project $65, 000 and we were able to subsidize the costs of the rides to make the service more financially accessible to all people living in the identified areas of the pilot.

    On May 1, 2010 to January 31, 2011, Sue Watts was seconded to be the Transportation Planner for two days per week. On June 24, 2010 a media announcement and event occurred to officially launch the pilot. This media announcement was followed up by on-going marketing activities including;

    • Regular contact with media
    • Presentations and information were given to community organizations, community groups, service clubs, municipal councils, businesses, other transportation service providers, schools and school clubs and economic development offices
    • Meetings with Recreation Directors of Municipalities to link transportation with community projects
    • Face book and website established and website links to Township and other agencies
    • Emails sent to front line staff of partner organizations of EKIOC to ensure detailed understanding of the pilot and how their clients could access the service
    • Posters and rack cards to community agencies, township office, businesses, churches, food banks, libraries, dumps, parks, medical centers, liquor stores, grocery stores, pharmacies, retirement facilitates, marinas,  etc
    • Canada Post mail-out to all households in the pilot area – 5,278
    •  Attended festivals, community events and fairs
    • Booths at trades shows

    LTA PROCESS FOR EKIOC TRANSPORTATION PILOT

    Our Memorandum of Understanding ended with LTA on January 31, 2011 and on February 1, 2011 EKIOC continued the pilot with OTF funding, until August 29, 2011. Family and Children Services of Lanark, Leeds and Grenville (FCAS) and the Employment and Education Centre (EEC) partnered to continue the work of the EKIOC Transportation Pilot. As a result of the knowledge gained from LTA, we adopted and adapted many of their operational policies and procedures. However, we delivered the pilot with volunteer drivers only, and as the vans were too costly they were returned to United Counties. As a result of what we had learned to-date including that there were services providing transportation in our pilot area, we morphed into a triage and referral service as well as a service deliverer. We developed a “manual” of all transportation services in the pilot area that included their mandate, cost, target client group and referral process. By becoming a referral service we were ensuring a collaborative approach to transportation service and avoiding duplication of services. We learned during the initial pilot stages that organizations were reluctant to “pool” their money and resources for a central service so we shifted gears.
    Marketing and partnership development continued to ensure awareness of new delivery of service which resulted in Developmental Service of Leeds and Grenville offering us access to their Accessible van when required. We made every attempt to make the transition from LTA to EKIOC seamless for the clients, which included LTA providing us with all on-going client bookings so we could schedule them with our drivers and LTA referred and new calls to our new 800#.
    Both agencies (FCAS and EEC) contributed extensive in-kind resources including staffing for project management, dispatching, triage and reception, 1-800#, and all overhead costs. We developed forms, financial processes, utilized existing driver recruitment processes (FCAS), developed the triage screening process and questions, developed the internal referral process and related documents. EEC answered the in-coming calls, asked questions to determine best-fit with transportation services available, should there be no existing transportation options, the EKIOC Transportation Pilot would provide the rides at which point an internal referral form was completed and electronically sent to FCAS. FCAS provided all services related to dispatching, driver recruitment and maintenance.

    EKIOC (EEC-FCAS) PROCESS FOR EKIOC TRANSPORTATION PILOT

    Findings
    Sustainability is the biggest concern regardless of the way we operate a transportation service (volunteer vs. business (LTA)). Without OTF funding the actual costs of rides would be so unreasonably high that no one would be able to access the service (see attached estimate of cost of rides). Hence, moving forward it is important to recognize that subsidization will always be required for transportation. When comparing the two different approaches to delivering our pilot the following became evident:

    • driver dependability meaning that the driver showed up to provide the ride was only marginally better when they were paid per hour
    • from a cost efficiency perspective it appears that operating similarly to LTA is more efficient than using volunteers especially we the service is providing the volume of rides that our pilot achieved
    • recruiting and maintaining volunteer drivers is very difficult when competing with other volunteer drive organizations, having a small pool of drivers makes expanding ridership difficult
    • it is more efficient to administer the service out of one organization rather than multiple community organizations

    Other findings

    • other means of assisting people with their transportation needs are apparent and should be included in a future service, for example, gas cards for people with cars who just can’t afford to put gas in them, (more buying power when all organization pool money for bulk purchases) or another example, running a van up and down the corridor from Cardinal to Gananoque
    • a service is needed to fill gaps as a result of transportation service providers with restricted mandates
    • transportation services for rural Leeds and Grenville needs to be centralized for ease of access for anyone searching for services – it also needs to look at most cost effective means of providing transporation which is what the pilot tried to do by partnering and referring
    • volunteer drivers can get burnt out and often volunteer for other organizations – it is crucial that a service does not rely too heavily on too few volunteer and that volunteers need to be recruited for each area offering service e.g. drivers recruited from Portland to serve that area reduces cost of bringing in drivers from other areas – these findings also support the concept of operating our service moving forward with hourly paid drivers
    • moving forward it will be necessary to enforce or revamp policies to better work with issues like how to better handle clients without contact information, no shows for rides, and receivables coming in more quickly

    Reasons for Trips

    • Employment            28%
    • Medical            40%
    • Education            8%
    • Community Services        14%
    • Recreation            6%
    • Access    /Visitations        5%

    Current Game Plan Moving Forward
    The Lanark, Leeds and Grenville Health Unit and Family and Children Services of Lanark, Leeds and Grenville have committed to moving ahead with an EKIOC Transportation Service that will serve all people in Leeds and Grenville. They will continue with the triage and referral concept (Health Unit’s role) and provision of rides for those folks that fall through the cracks (FCAS’s role). The Health Unit is using their 800# and the triage spreadsheet tool we developed (see attached). An extensive Gant chart has been developed to work out all the details of the next steps. Joint Services has been approached regarding partnership and financial resources and funding has been secured ($10,000) from the Court Diversion Fund via EKIOC to help with continuation of this project. The EKIOC Transportation Working Group will become the Advisory Board for this project.

    Printable copy of above: EKIOC Final Transportation Report

    Key Learnings

    This OTF grant enabled communities to work together in an attempt to look at solutions to a long-term concern – access to rural transportation. Presentations, information sharing and partnerships with Municipalities, community organizations, services, programs and businesses were intensely executed to ensure support of all kinds for this transportation service. All rural communities involved in the pilot benefitted directly from the access to service delivery, creative means of working with others to benefit citizens and from the learnings as a result of the pilot. Vulnerable people who had few other options or fell through the cracks of other transportation services benefited from this pilot and OTF grant. Access to transportation that enabled people to get to work, find employment, access medical services, attend school, and access recreational activities were some of the ways that people’s quality of life improved.
    Key things learned:

    • The assumption that there were no transportation services available in rural Leeds and Grenville was incorrect. However, these services had narrow mandated populations that could receive transportation and were often stretched due to extending themselves beyond their mandates. As a result, the EKIOC Transportation Pilot, morphed into a “triage” and referral service as much as a service provider. (see analysis – Appendix A for more details)
    • The cost to provide transportation is not in line with what people are able to pay. Transportation will always need to be heavily subsidized in order for the most vulnerable people to have access (most vulnerable people are often “working poor” or those not attached to agencies with transportation dollars as supports). Therefore operating a service using the “volunteer driver” method is the most cost effective. (see analysis – Appendix A for more details)
    • Moving agencies who have provided transportation in a certain way (eg staff travelling to pick up clients) to a new more cost effective way of providing transportation is a very slow process. Trust in the service and deliverers must be developed and a concrete way to show the cost saving (eg staff time) must happen in order for a shift to occur. Suggestions for the future – set up formal partnership agreements for a transportation service.
    • Regardless of the processes in place, problems occur and transportation service provision is a 24/7 job.
    • It was very effective to partner with an established service (Lanark Transportation Association) for the initial portion of the pilot as we quickly gained knowledge of best practices including policies and procedures.
    • Not all people needed access to a car or driver. Low income families had a car but no gas money or insurance. In these instances, provision of a transportation service was not the most cost effect way to receive transportation support.
    • Children and youth often fell through the transportation service cracks as other existing services had policies about transporting children, born out of liability concerns, which prohibited service provision. EKIOC Transportation Services again, morphed into a service provider for this group, once Lanark Transportation Association completed their agreement with EKIOC.
    • Posters, rack cards, articles are effective means of advertising in the rural areas.

    Printable copy of above key findings

    EKIOC Final Report to Trillium

     

    Meeting Notes

    Note: To foster involvement and immediate communication Everykid posts meeting notes rather than minutes.  Meeting notes give an overview rather than an accurate record agreed to by all; a sketch rather than a photo.  Please contact the chair of your group by email if a change is needed.

    Articles of Interest

    Rural Transportation -Rural Ontario Focused research