Map and Schedule Design Operations and Operating Assistance Performance Analysis and Evaluation Transportation Planning, Analyses and Studies Transportation System DesignTransportation Alternatives has been involved in the coordination, consolidation and integration of various transportation modes virtually since the firm's inception. TA President Ned Einstein serves a member of several organizations dedicated to the integration of modes and/or their ideas and characteristics, and has authored a number of important policy documents related to this important aspect of transportation. At the planning and system design level, most of the systems created by TA have included both multiple user groups and the integration of service types (e.g., local/feeder-collector fixed route bus-to-rail) into an intermodal structure. Many have involved the integration of operating characteristics from more than one mode (e.g., route and point deviation services combine the elements of fixed route and demand-responsive services). Examples of TA's work in this area are divided into four sections:
TA conducted several feasibility studies of the coordination and/or consolidation of special paratransit services for elderly and disabled individuals, including a study involving social service agency paratransit operations in Orange County, CA, and municipal and social service agency operations in Los Angeles County's "West Side." (See Transportation Planning, Analysis and Studies.) TA also effected the actual integration of more than 30 fragmented services for programs serving clients of the North Los Angeles County Regional Center into a single 70-vehicle operation in two service areas, and for part of this service's nine-year operation by TA-owned PTS Transportation, its consolidation with the TA-designed City of Los Angeles' VALTRANS paratransit program for elderly and disabled individuals. TA's plan for similarly consolidating all services provided by the Pomona Valley "Get About" (Pomona, Claremont, LaVerne and San Dimas) was fully implemented, and it's plan for consolidating service for clients of the East Los Angeles Retarded Citizens Association (ELARCA) was partly implemented.
Virtually every general public transportation system designed by TA was developed to effect an integration of different (and often conflicting) service objectives and designed to serve multiple user groups. TA's initial design of the Carson Circuit--one of the nation's first timed-transfer pulse systems--involved the integration of a local circulator system with a feeder/distributor system designed to interface with the dozen regional fixed route bus services operating within or adjacent to the City. TA's revision of this system a decade later further expanded the system's scope to include interfacing with the City's Del Amo Metrorail Blue Line station, thereby providing rapid bi-directional service between the system's timed-transfer focal point and the County's light rail service from Long Beach to downtown Los Angeles. Further, this latter design effort was the nation's first system designed largely to accommodate the specific needs of schoolchildren, who became its predominant ridership group (see Map and Schedule Design).
TA's design of the route deviation feeder service to the Lakewood Green Line Metrorail station involved the integration of fixed route and demand-responsive transportation service characteristics. The service included clearly-defined route alignments, corridors and designated stops. However, during certain times of the day, vehicles deviate from these routes to pick up and/or drop off passengers residing, working or otherwise needing to access destinations within the corridors such that the overall route's schedule adherence is not seriously compromised.
TA has been actively involved in both national and international organizations dedicated to the integration of transportation modes and services. TA President Ned Einstein is a member of the Transit Use Committee of the National Standards Conference, a Committee aimed at improving the safety of transit services for use by schoolchildren for whom traditional pupil transportation services are not available. In this capacity, he co-authored the policy document calling for a constructive dialog between the pupil transportation and transit communities, unanimously adopted by the 50-member National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation. Mr. Einstein was also an original member of A.I.S.T., the Quebec City-based International Association for the Safe Transportation of Children, and a member of Paris-based ANATEEP--the European Union's policy-making organization concerned with the transportation of schoolchildren. TA President Ned Einstein was selected as a speaker at A.I.S.T.'s First International Conference in 1995. (See Memberships and Affiliations.)
In his capacity as a member of the Transit Use Committee of the National Standards Conference, TA President Mr. Einstein co-authored (with California Supervisor of Pupil Transportation Ron Kinney) the original policy document adopted unanimously by the 50-member National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services (NASDPTS) calling for safety improvements in transit services to accommodate schoolchildren (see STNonline.com/State Directors/Proposed Partnership between School Bus and Public Transit Service).
In response to worldwide interest in the unique safety features of U.S.-manufactured school buses and, in particular, the U.S. and European controversy raging over the feasibility of installing seatbelts in buses used by schoolchildren, TA President Ned Einstein prepared a paper for A.I.S.T. on U.S. vehicle manufacturing standards and the feasibility of installing seatbelts in U.S.-manufactured school buses.
Prior to his formation of Transportation Alternatives, TA President Ned Einstein's summary of the National Survey of the Transportation Handicapped prepared for submittal to the U.S. Congress involved the controversial issue of "inclusion" versus "exclusion" of disabled transit riders in general public transportation systems compared to their travel in separate door-to-door paratransit services. The result of this initial analysis almost two decades later, in the transportation sections of the Americans with Disabilities Act, was to mandate that both services be made available and accessible to these individuals.
As a founding member of the U.S.-Slovene joint venture company TAM-USA, TA presided over the design and development of the first monocoque school bus ever constructed--a design which integrated a full range of U.S.-certified safety features into a European tour coach vehicle envelope (see Vehicle Design, Specification and Product Development). While this project was not commercially successful, it led to a plethora of vehicle integration efforts in the Early 1990's, including every school bus manufacturers' production of "Transit" and "over-the-road" coach models, as well as the State of California's specifications and RFP for an integrated transit/school bus.
See also:
Map and Schedule Design Operations and Operating Assistance Performance Analysis and Evaluation Transportation Planning, Analyses and Studies Transportation System Design