Region V illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota

Ohio

Ohio Department of Transportation (1225)

City of Sandusky (730)

Sandusky-Perkins Area Ride Connection (SPARC) (911)

Location: City of Sandusky (OH)

Type: Trip-Based Services/Flexible routing

Goal: Extended hours/ days of service

Service description: The Sandusky Transit System utilized its FY 2009 Job Access Reverse Commute grant funds to operate its SPARC route. The Sandusky-Perkins Area Ride Connection (SPARC) route operated within the City of Sandusky and Perkins Township, Ohio. Its primary purpose was to connect lower income neighborhoods in the City of Sandusky with the approximately 6,200 jobs found along the U.S. Route 250/Milan Road corridor between Perkins Avenue and State Route 2. The SPARC route service is a point deviation route which makes 15 regular stops at scheduled time points with deviation possible from the route up to 3/4 mile on an advance reservation basis. The route operates Monday through Saturday, 6 AM to 10 PM and is approximately a one-hour loop. Passenger fares are $1 per one way trip.

Evaluation: STS evaluated the SPARC route for 2009 based on overall ridership, ridership to job locations, and ridership during evening hours (6 PM to 10 PM). Overall ridership was very good for a new service with almost 20,000 riders on the route between March 16, 2009 and December 31, 2009. Anecdotal evidence from passengers was also gathered and comments were very positive. Riders really liked the convenience of boarding at a stop, knowing what time the bus would arrive based on a fixed schedule, rather than making advance reservation for trips. STS staff also had numerous requests from passengers to expand the route and add more stops so that more City of Sandusky residents could gain access to the Route 250 corridor and Perkins Avenue businesses.
Ridership to job locations totaled 7,694 trips and new ridership during the longer evening hours totaled 3,992. These numbers indicated that a significant number of people were using SPARC to get to their places of employment and to work during the evening hours. Sandusky is a service- and tourist-oriented employment market and many employers stay open later in the evening (mall, restaurants, hotels, etc.).

Accomplishments: The service has been very popular and ridership continues to increase. The route also introduced more of a "big city, fixed route" concept of public transportation into the community and people have responded positively. The service has enabled many lower income people living in the City of Sandusky to maintain their employment because they have reliable transportation and evening transportation.

Lessons learned: The route of travel for the SPARC bus had to be revised (not the stops/timepoints) once it was operational to avoid summer tourist traffic and to ensure that the route was not too long. It was very difficult to negotiate with the local mall for a SPARC stop to be on the mall property, so STS ended up not having a dedicated stop at the mall, though the SPARC bus will deviate to go to the mall. Amenities such as benches were needed at certain stops in the public right-of-way, so riders did not utilize private property for waiting areas.

Community Action Commission of Fayette County (728)

Wheels to Work Program (903)

Location: Fayette and Highland counties (OH)

Type: Trip-Based Services/Demand response

Goal: Extended hours/ days of service

Service description: Wheels to Work provided transportation services to and from work for residents living inside Fayette County. It also provided transportation for Fayette County residents to an out-of-town employment training facility in Highland County. 90% of the trips were provided to destinations within Fayette County.

Evaluation: Manifests were tracked daily for efficiency and data was entered into a spreadsheet. They also tracked new passengers and employers that were added each month, along with how many overall trips were made that month.

Accomplishments: Transportation was provided to places of employment for passengers who, without the service, would have been unable to make it to work. This allowed county residents to accept and maintain jobs.

Lessons learned: Many people benefited from the service and it needed to be run as efficiently as possible so that all passengers would get to work on time.

Community Action Committee of Pike County (729)

CATS Mobility Management Project (910)

Location: Piketon (OH)

Type: Information-Based Services/Mobility manager

Goal: Improved access/connections

Service description: To coordinate work trip marketing and promotion to increase access for low-income county residents and employers, enabling connections to be established between individuals and training and employment opportunities.

Evaluation: Evaluated by tracking web hits, presentations made, and one-stop referrals received

Accomplishments: 57 one-stop referrals were received, a web site was developed, and 1,994 internet hits took place. Based upon community presentations made, a brochure has been prepared for use in future opportunities.

Lessons learned: The hardest part is the need for continuous follow-up to keep all of the parties engaged.

Community Action Transit System (909)

Location: Piketon (OH)

Type: Trip-Based Services/Demand response

Goal: Improved system capacity

Service description: The service provides a route that connects the City of Waverly to the Village of Piketon. This was a strategic expansion that targeted low-income housing residents in Waverly and Piketon. Since the local Workforce Investment Act program is located in a remote area of Piketon and Pike County, Ohio has notoriously high unemployment rates, the JARC route connects job seekers with job search opportunities.

Evaluation: The JARC route stays very busy as evidenced by the number of trips recorded.

Accomplishments: A route was established that is very popular with many passengers. The route also connects many to day care located in the same facility as the Workforce Investment Act program. The route has also been useful in getting Work Activities participants to job sites as assigned by the Pike County Department of Job and Family Services.

Lessons learned: Once employed, passengers who once rode the JARC route may use another CATS route to get to a work site and the project should have been written in a way that would capture those trips as well.

Community Action Partnership of the Greater Dayton Area (732)

CAP JARC Service (917)

Location: Preble County (OH)

Type: Trip-Based Services/Demand response

Goal: Extended hours/ days of service

Service description: JARC transportation is provided for low-income Preble County residents to and from employment, schooling, or job training within a 50-mile radius. Transportation is provided 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Evaluation: Drivers’ run sheets are monitored monthly. The JARC program carries the majority of our clients. The program was started in June 2008 and transported 975 one way trips from June through December 2009, traveling a total of 32,951 miles.

Accomplishments: The project enabled residents of Preble County to find jobs and get to their place of employment or school. In the past, they would not have had a way to get there. This program has helped many people become self sufficient.

Lessons learned: Consideration is being given to charging a fare to offset costs. Also developing marketing toward additional second and third shift trips.

Jackson-Vinton Community Action (733)

Jackson-Vinton Community Action Transportation (919)

Location: Wellston (OH)

Type: Trip-Based Services/Demand response

Goal: Extended hours/ days of service

Service description: Jackson-Winton Community Action (JVCAI) provided transportation to job and training sites for the residents of Jackson and Vinton counties to expand the local Ohio Works First program as a temporary assistance to help people seek, interview for, and retain employment, where they had no other means of transportation available to them.

Evaluation: Surveys were distributed to the transportation participants and received a 97% satisfaction rating.

Accomplishments: Through marketing and coordination efforts, public awareness of the JARC program has greatly increased. Many people were able to obtain employment that they ordinarily would not have, if not for this service. Several jobs were saved through the use of JARC services that would have been lost had this program not been available. Many clients reached self-sufficiency, gaining their own transportation while utilizing the JARC transportation services.

Lessons learned: Most new employment is non-typical shifts, such as late night or early morning and there are no other transportation resources available for job commute. What we wished we had known when we started the service: If the OWF program was going to be eliminated two months after the JARC program began. The need for services instantly doubled.

Job & Family Services of Clark County (731)

Job & Family Services of Clark County (915)

Location: Clark County (OH)

Type: Trip-Based Services/Demand response

Goal: Improved system capacity

Service description: Job & Family Services of Clark County (JFSCC ) provided, via contract, transportation services to TANF-eligible customers needing transportation to employment and work activities. The services were provided via a demand responsive system in which customers call and schedule their rides to their places of employment/or work activity sites within the Clark County service area.

Evaluation: JFSCC's transportation program provided a total of 8,333 one way trips for TANF-eligible customers accessing transportation for employment and work activities. Additionally, an average of 40 jobs/related work activities were accessed on a monthly basis. However, we have documented no increase in the number of trips provided through this service during the grant period, as the lack of jobs in the local economy prevented an increase in employment-related trips for this population.

Accomplishments: Although the service was not "expanded" per se, this program was a success because without the JARC grant, such trips would not have been possible due to severe budget constraints.

Lessons learned: It is difficult to predict mechanisms for expansion for a service that is provided on the basis of available jobs in the local economy.

Lorain County (736)

Lorain County Transit (922)

Location: Lorain County (OH)

Type: Information-Based Services/Information materials/marketing

Goal: Improved customer knowledge

Service description: The subject grant was to support implementation of new job access service by Lorain County Transit (LCT) during the period. The original intent was to address gaps in three LCT routes providing reverse commute service linkages to Cuyahoga County. Due to a severe budget crisis in Lorain County, those routes were discontinued (routes 11, 33, 70). Instead, the JARC funds supported the planning of evening work access routes to return workers home from Midway Mall during times after regular service terminated. These evening work access loop routes operated weekdays only from 7 PM to 10 PM, following each of two fixed route alignments, one serving Lorain workers and the other serving Elyria workers. From 10 PM to 11 PM, the service operated as an on-demand service.

Evaluation: A prior year budget cut resulted in discontinuation of LCT evening services, but demand was still present based largely on public feedback from June 2009 public hearings for the route changes. Using Midway Mall as the terminal, the service was very successful. From evening loop service initiation in mid-July, through December 2009, 4,420 trips were taken. Carrying over 15 passengers per hour, the productivity of this service exceeded the LCT system average of ten passengers per hour. Prior to its discontinuation at the end of May, Route 33 carried a total of 3,735 trips. So, the productivity of this long-established route, which operated eight hours daily, was about half that of the evening work access loop service which operated less than half as many hours each day.

Accomplishments: RLS & Associates of Dayton, Ohio was contracted to assist with the planning of the new service. Several years earlier, RLS had completed an analysis of LCT's route structure relative to service supply and demand. This JARC grant leveraged that effort by enabling earlier data to be applied to redrawing ADA Paratransit service boundaries to account for the budgetary retractions in the three above-mentioned fixed routes. The latest RLS analysis also confirmed that the evening service should follow existing route alignments rather than creating new ones.

Lessons learned: Customers found the evening loops extremely useful; they clearly served an important unmet travel need. Should funds become available in coming months, the evening loops should be among the first routes to be restored by LCT.