Criteria to prioritize opportunities to shift paratransit trips to regular transit network – Montreal case study

Abstract

IntroductionMobility is an important tool for the social inclusion of PWDs (people with disabilities). Unfortunately, the number of paratransit users, in most cities, is rapidly growing while resources remain limited. Paratransit is one of the rare public transport services that are adapted to the needs of users with disabilities. Still, it may be possible to shift some paratransit trips to the RTN (regular transit network). The aim of this paper is to develop and test criteria to identify paratransit trips that could be shifted to the RTN with the best potential of success. MethodsFour criteria are proposed to identify these trips. 1) The autonomy level of paratransit users: they must be able to use the RTN by themselves. 2) The universal design of each metro station, bus stop and vehicle. 3) The spatial location of both origin and destination of the trips and their proximity to the RTN, to avoid long walking/rolling distances. 4) The frequency of the trips: how many times over a year does a user performs a specific trip. We propose a method to evaluate these criteria. ResultsThese four criteria allow prioritizing paratransit trips that could be shifted the RTN with the most potential of success. With these criteria, the safety and the satisfaction of users could be maintained while reducing operation costs of paratransit services. The method has been applied to the paratransit trips of the STM (Montreal Transit Authority) and 15% (400,000 trips) of them could be shifted to the RTN in short term. ConclusionThis research is a step forward to shift paratransit trips to RTN. Still, the proposed criteria need to be refined and more criteria could be added to improve the prioritization of most promising paratransit trips. Nevertheless, the application of this methodology can assist stakeholders in making choices about the mobility services for PWDs.