Access Services Access to Work Program

Background FTA Job Access Reverse Commute (Sec. 5316) Grant designed to: Modify traditional Access trips for work-based paratransit Trips designed get to work by “start time” Three grants awarded (2010, 2012, 2017) Capital (50 Vans + Replace/ 65-75 vans) $10.6 million Operations $8.0 million

Program Features Designed for Access customers with low income to reach employment & job training before work start. Enhanced service to reliably reach employment Service available throughout all six Access regions Schedule trips to work start time Flat $2 discounted fare No Wait List 94% On-Time Performance Access to Work vehicles can be used for traditional Access trips

Current Program Status Service started January 2012 Customers enrolled – 193 active customers Average monthly trips – ~1,600 to work (3,200 total) Average On Time Performance – 94% .

Program Findings Customers say they have no other transportation to work Very valuable program for persons relying on Access to reach employment Traditional paratransit not designed for work start-times Modifications to Standing Order service

Customer Satisfaction Survey

Customer Satisfaction Survey Periodic Customer Satisfaction Survey (2014, 2016, 2019) Mail-Out Questionnaire (January 2019) To Active Customers And Formerly Active Customers Nine Multiple Choice Questions & Two Open-Ended Questions Non-Active was 6 multiple choice & 2 open-ended Response Rate – 34%/20%

Survey Findings Single largest group was 9-10 trips to and from work per week 36% Second largest group was 5-6 trips to and from work per week 28%

How Often To Work On Time? 36% of respondents said they always get to work on time 48% of respondents said the get to work on time MOST of the time That covers 84% of all active user respondents

No Other Transport to Work I FEEL THE NEXT TWO QUESTIONS ARE REALLY AT THE HEART OF THE VALUE OF THIS PROGRAM AND WHY ACCESS SHOULD CONTINUE TO PROVIDE THIS SERVICE This question was to the customer that “WITHOUT THE ATW PROGRAM WOULD YOU NOT HAVE ANOTHER RELIABLE SOURCE OF TRANSPORTATION TO GET YOU TO WORK?” 81% strongly agreed 16% somewhat agreed 97% of respondents agreed with this statement And as this survey shows, the Strongly Agree results are noticeably higher than when we performed this same survey in 2016.

Difficult to Keep Job-No ATW This question was of the respondents that if they did not have Access to Work would it be difficult for them to keep their current employment? 73% said they strongly agreed 16% said they somewhat agreed 89% in total agreed with this statement. And as this survey shows, the Strongly Agree results are noticeably higher than when we performed this same survey in 2016.

At Work with Plenty of Time Does Access to Work get customers to work ahead of their work start time with time to spare? 83% agreed with that statement 16% said they have to hurry to be on time

Overall Experience with ATW This slide shows the results of the 9th question to our Active customers, however, I did want to mention briefly the results of the 8th question was whether the ATW program Exceeded, Met, or did not meet the customer’s expectations 20% of respondents indicated that ATW EXCEEDED their expectations (17) 69% of respondents indicated that ATW MET their expectations (57) 8% of respondents indicated that it did NOT meet their expectations. (7) There is still some work to do, but the results from this survey are quite positive. ___________________________ The results of this question were quite refreshing to see. The 2019 responses of excellent and good were higher than they were in 2016 And the Okay and Poor responses were much lower than in 2016. There is still work to be done, but I would say that Access is trending in the right direction the more experience that we have with this program.

What do you Like? Categories count percentage Driver Courteous / Professional / Provide Needed Assistance / Communicate 23 28% Prompt / On time/ 21 25% Need the Transportation / Appreciate the program 13 16% Dependable / Reliable 11 13% Convenient / Curb to Curb Service/ Permanent Schedule 8 10% Affordable / Easy Payment 7 8% Comfortable Ride / Vehicle Clean / Air Conditioned / Roomy 5 6% Hassle Free / No Stress / Relaxed 2 2% Nothing Good Customer Service / Caring 1 1% Safe Transportation less shared ride Blank 12 14% There were 107 responses to what folks liked about the program, many of the 83 respondents providing multiple things that they liked about the program.

What do you Dislike? Categories count percentage Nothing 18 22% Arrive Late / Arrive Too Early / Inconsistent Pickup Times / Long Waits / Not Punctual 15 18% Inefficient Routing / Long Commutes/ inefficient share-ride routing 11 13% Share Ride / Too Many Share Riders 8 10% Driver Rude / Impatient 5 6% Prefer Access Vans to Taxis 4 5% Afternoon Rides Late/back home ride late 3 4% not in the right address Last Minute Schedule Changes / No Notification of Changes / Added Riders 2 2% Schedule Inflexibility / Day Before Change Notification Requirement / No Same Day Change limited ride per day Drivers Fail to Show Up / Out of Sight / No Shows 1 1% Not Enough Drivers radio too loud long time paper work vehicle not clean enough / need more space application time too long Blank Only 90 responses to what folks they disliked, which to me, touched my heart in a bigger way than I expected. As a person who periodically visits the internet and sees any number of complaints about every movie, restaurant, sports team, and celebrity, it struck me as a very positive thing to see an opportunity for people to easily put their dislikes and then not have such a focus on the negative. In fact, the biggest response to what do you dislike was NOTHING at 22% Another 13% left this answer altogether blank. There ARE ISSUES with respect to trip times and inefficient share-ride trips, and these are matters that Access can explore at the customer-level.

ATW Experience (non-Active) I am not going to spend time on the non-active customers, because many of their responses were surprisingly similar to the Active customers. The biggest reason that customers stopped using Access to work was (41% left the job they had and/or retired), however, a source of concern was the next largest group said they left because they 35% were not satisfied with the ATW services. NOTE THAT THE SURVEYS WERE INDIVIDUALLY MARKED AND CODED, SO THAT FOLKS COULD BE FOLLOWED-UP UPON. I did, however, want to show this single graph from the NON-ACTIVE survey and it shows that these customers did NOT rate ATW as high as Active customers, which is not very surprising, but still, had generally very positive opinions about the ATW program, with 86% rating it as Excellent, Good, or Okay.

Next Steps Access to use Customer Survey as tool to improve service With grant funding, ATW projected to continue County-wide through late 2020 Replace original 48 Access to Work minivans Working with Employment Centers to attract new ATW customers across County Access is very proud of this program and the results that it has yielded. There are some next steps that Access will be pursuing, listed herein EMPHASIZE THE LAST ONE!!!