Transportation Alternatives co-owned and directed the operation of a major paratransit service for nearly a decade, served as the broker of a major dial-a-ride system, and assisted numerous public agencies and private companies in their operations of a broad range of often unique transit, paratransit and hybrid transportation services, many of which TA designed.

As co-owner of PTS Transportation, TA designed, directed and supervised a 70-vehicle demand-responsive, flexible-schedule subscription service for 1,100 physically and developmentally disabled clients of the North Los Angeles County Regional Center attending more than 30 program facilities in the County's San Fernando and Antelope Valleys. Relying on subcontractor Chrysler Corporation's vanpool subsidiary, VPSI, for vehicles, insurance, maintenance and fuel, TA directed the performance of a complete range of operating functions for a nine-year period. Concurrent with this operation, TA directed PTS Transportation's MediCal-funded non-emergency medical service, transporting physically disabled and ill clients to medical facilities throughout Los Angeles County for dialysis, chemotherapy, radiation, physical therapy, doctors' examinations and other purposes. Not only were these two operations fully integrated (shared fleet, centralized dispatch, etc.) but, in several areas, further integrated with the City of Los Angeles' VALTRANS dial-a-ride system during that program's early stages of development.

As the technical consultant to PTS Transportation, TA assisted PTS in its role as the original Paratransit Broker for the City of Los Angeles' VALTRANS Dial-A-Ride program. In its capacity as Director of PTS' services, TA developed RFPs and operating contracts for participating service providers, supervised, managed and monitored their performance, and assigned them to various coordinated service roles. The multi-provider service structure included dedicated vehicle supplemented by a non-emergency medical service network, as well as taxicabs used to accommodate "overflow" and provide service in low density portions of the service area and during periods of low demand. Among TA's many responsibilities, it prepared "skeleton" schedules for the dedicated vehicle portion of service, into which pre-scheduled demand-responsive and immediate-response trips were integrated.

TA performed a number of technical assistance functions to both public- and private-sector operated transportation service entities, including:

• Wilmington Checker Cab and SuperShuttle. TA helped this multi-purpose South Bay transportation company monitor and restructure its dedicated vehicle and taxi-based dial-a-ride services provided to roughly a dozen cities in Los Angeles County's South Bay. TA also prepared the PUC application for the Company's original route deviation "Supershuttle" operation, since replicated by Wilmington Checker and numerous other companies throughout the country.

• Pomona Valley Get About and Diversified Paratransit, Inc.. After redesigning the routes and service structure of this four-city dial-a-ride service and revising the operating contract for its private service provider (Diversified Paratransit, Inc.), TA resolved a number of operating, capacity and institutional problems stemming from the system's integration of demand-responsive dial-a-ride service to elderly and disabled individuals with subscription service for developmentally disabled clients of the San Gabriel Valley Regional Center. These resolutions included a revised route design and the reallocation of service resources to both target audiences such that all could be accommodated with the service's existing resources. The effort resulted in the agency's restructuring by its Board of Directors, the Pomona Valley Joint Powers Authority.

• Diversified Paratransit Services, Inc.. TA helped this large subregional paratransit service company restructure its dial-a-ride and subscription services, and evaluated and redefined its scheduling and dispatching procedures.

• The East Los Angeles Community Union (TELACU). As TELACU's technical consultant, TA helped TELACU redesign its subscription service to social service agency clients, including service to physically and developmentally challenged clients of the East Los Angeles Retarded Citizens Association (ELARCA). TA designed skeleton route, coordinated subcontracting service with Chrysler subsidiary Van Pool Services, Inc. (VPSI), and conducted feasibility studies and performance-improvement analyses, including an examination of the cost savings which would result from TELACU's assumption of the entire ELARCA service structure.

• Transportation Concepts, Inc. (TCI). TA prepared technical proposals--including preliminary system designs and run-cutting analyses--for TCI's successful assumption of several fixed route lines and a route-deviation feeder service (to the Lakewood Green Line Metrorail station) contracted by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACMTA).

See also:

^{Principles of System Design
Principles of Paratransit Design
Coordination and Consolidation
Map and Schedule Design
Performance Analysis and Evaluation
Transportation Planning, Analyses and Studies
Transportation System Design}