Serving Paratransit Needs in the Mid-Atlantic Region

Servicing three organizing authorities, the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA), the City of Baltimore, and Baltimore County, our paratransit operations have been steadily expanding their Mobility, Paratransit and Medical Assistance service. This is in response to our clients’ new destinations in a wider geographical service area. Concurrently managing this expansion in the service area and rapid growth in ridership has been a shared challenge for all three organizing authorities in Baltimore.

The aging of the population has led to a large, unanticipated increase in the number of people certified to ride their service. Over one million passengers are transported annually on the paratransit services we operate on behalf of our Baltimore-area clients. We employ 350 people and operate and maintain 200 specially-equipped vehicles.

To meet these challenges the three authorities have established common objectives, designed to meet the demands of ridership:

• Create a more efficient way to provide quality service across a growing coverage area.
• Manage the increasing overall ridership, including seasonal variations.
• Find efficiencies to better manage the cost of providing service.
• Instill a culture of constantly improving passenger care.

To support our clients’ objectives, Veolia Transportation developed solutions aimed at maintaining top-quality service while managing rapid ridership growth. We’re accomplishing this by strategically stacking trips by geographic area and focusing on deploying the right sized vehicle for all trips. Additionally, by using advanced software to schedule, organize, and monitor trips we are able to dynamically re-prioritize trips for maximum efficiency.

We’ve also generated synergy and savings by collaborating with adjacent Veolia Transportation operations. Given that we operate three contracts, we are uniquely positioned to combine inter-contract routes, staff and equipment for improved customer service and cost savings.

Additionally, we initiated an arrangement for taxi services to supplement our paratransit services. In Baltimore, Veolia Transportation owns the largest taxi service in the city. Our paratransit group works closely with our taxi team so they can provide service when our paratransit team needs additional vehicles to meet demand. The taxi drivers are carefully trained and the service is seamless for customers. The advantages include cost savings, convenience, overload relief and the ability to accommodate last-minute trip requests.

In order to ensure our goal at providing excellent passenger care that exceeds customer expectations, we actively solicit feedback, advice and ideas from our operators. We also provide operator training to ensure a safe, smooth and comfortable ride for all passengers. We perform random, proactive review of DriveCam clips to verify that our drivers are following our safety practices.