Employment Transportation Research Articles

Costs and benefits of employment transportation for low-wage workers: An assessment of job access public transportation services

This paper focuses on an evaluation of public transportation-based employment transportation (ET) services to transport low-wage workers to jobs in the US. We make an attempt to capture a more comprehensive range of intended and unintended outcomes of ET services than those traditionally considered in the case of public transportation services. Using primary data from 23 locations across the country, we present a framework to evaluate how transportation improvements, in interaction with labor markets, can affect users’ short-run economic welfare, users’ long-run human capital accumulation and non-users’ short-run economic welfare. These services were partially funded by a specialized program – the Job Access and Reverse Commute (JARC) program – which was consolidated into larger transit funding programs by recent legislation. In the sites examined, we found that low wage users benefited from self-reported increased access to jobs, improvements in earnings potential, as well as from savings in transport cost and time. Simulations show the potential of users to accrue long-term worklife benefits. At the same time, users may have accrued changes in leisure time as a result of transitioning from unemployment to employment, and generated a range of societal impacts on three classes of non-users: the general tax-paying public, the general commuting public in the service operating area and other low-wage workers in local labor markets.

Analysis of Cost-Effectiveness of Employment Transportation Services

The author examined cost-effectiveness of employment transportation (ET) services funded by the Job Access and Reverse Commute program of FTA in 2002. These services transport low-wage workers to jobs. The author presented multiple sources of primary and administrative data on users and programs in 23 ET sites. ET cost per ride measures were compared with cost per ride measures of transit services that were operating in the same area (called peer transit services). A cost per user per year was estimated to determine the level of transportation investments on the mobility of low-wage workers. On a per ride basis, ET services cost more to deliver than did peer transit services, but a wide variation existed in the level of investments and subsidies among different types of users, areas, and types of service. The median estimated cost per ET service user per year was similar to the annual investment per recipient by several social and human services and workforce development programs that supported low-income individuals to achieve improved economic outcomes. ET annual expenditures were the greatest for low-wage individuals who were traveling to work and less so for low-income individuals who were traveling to job training, to look for jobs, or to shop and make other discretionary trips. Implications are drawn for human services transportation coordination and for data and reporting requirements.