Coordinated Rural Transportation Resource-Based Cost Allocation Case Studies - Using Passenger Miles and Hours to Determine Resource Allocation

Providing coordinated transportation in rural communities can maximize the use of resources to provide cost effective transportation throughout the community. Coordinating transportation can lower administrative costs, avoid duplication of services, increase productivity, improve cost effectiveness, and enhance mobility in rural communities. In Texas, rural transit districts have gained from coordinating general public transportation with other transportation programs including Area Agency on Aging, Head Start, Elderly Persons and Persons with Disabilities, Job Access Reverse Commute, New Freedom, and welfare-to-work programs. In 2009, 21 of the 39 rural transit districts in Texas received Medicaid non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) funds under the Texas Medical Transportation Program (MTP) and is the largest program coordinated by Texas rural transit districts. Although coordination of transportation service exists in rural Texas communities, allocation of transportation services and costs often do not reflect the differences in resources used between service types. Efforts to coordinate or continue coordination may be hindered by not equitably allocating costs. This study builds on TCRP Report 144, Sharing the Costs of Human Services Transportation in which a model is provided for sharing costs of human services transportation. In the approach provided in this paper, cost allocation is based on the percent of passenger miles, passenger hours, and administrative labor by trip type to take into account the average trip lengths and average trip times that may differ across trip types served. The resource-based cost allocation was applied to five rural transit district case studies. A comparison of a resource-based cost allocation and a boardings-based cost allocation is also provided.