Mobility Management Takes a
Page from Amazon’s Winning
Strategy for Customer Service
by David J. Cyra, PE
Amazon continues to defy retail
trends and not only succeed but grow
sales in our challenging economy.
The key to their success is a focus
on the ‘customer experience.’
According to an interview with VP
of Site Development at Amazon, the
customer experience [is] “infused
throughout all levels of the company.
We also have a usability team with
people in the roles you’d expect.
But when people ask why it is that
Amazon.com has this focus, the key
is that it’s not one person, or one
team, responsible for the overall
customer experience. Everyone in
the company owns it.” (Interview by
Mark Hurst, Good Experience)
Mobility management is the
culmination of many efforts
over the years to streamline and
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Community Transportation
coordinate transportation. Mobility
management takes the principle of
the overall customer experience and
applies that to transportation service
within our communities, regions and
states.
As defined by the Federal
Transit Administration, “Mobility
management is an approach
to service development and
management that focuses on
individualized customer markets
and involves establishing a variety of
services tailored to meet the needs of
those markets.”
and expands its services to include
those travel options found in the
community. What does the customer
need, and how can I change and
expand my service offerings to ensure
improved mobility no matter what
their circumstance?
There are three key elements to
setting up a mobility management
operation: Determining what the
riding public needs, securing the
funding, and training the people
and utilizing technology to pull the
resources and providers all together.
Sizing up your Riding Public
While traditional transit centers
plan services based on their fleet
of buses and other fixed equipment
and assets, mobility management
starts with the customer in mind
Generally, your customers will fall
into four broad groups: the elderly,
children, low income citizens, and
persons with disabilities.
Mobility management presumes
that whatever mobility is needed,
can be made available. That’s why
the first step is to decide what needs
must be met; in effect, create a
marketing plan that looks at the
following:
•
•
•
•
•
Who is eligible and how are
they to be served?
What is the market share?
What needs are proposed to be
met?
What current services are
available?
Are there gaps or redundancies
in service?
With these questions answered,
you can then develop a service plan,
address gaps or duplication in service
and prioritize services.
management expenses for eligible
grant recipients.
SAFETEA-LU also affords
a new option to use non-DOT
transportation funding or service
contracts to meet matching
requirements. The law defines
mobility management as “shortrange planning and management
activities and projects for
improving coordination among
public transportation and other
transportation providers.”
Some of the funding programs that
can be used to help build and grow
your mobility management center are
listed below:
•
•
Aside from marketing, these
‘prompt’ questions help the provider
or regional human service entities
prove out the positive economic and
human service impact of a mobility
management center – an important
consideration when it comes to
funding.
For example, the marketing
plan could show how mobility
management could create and/or
stabilize jobs, assist in increasing
tax revenues, enhance educational
opportunities, improve the quality of
life, enhance access to health care,
or protect the environment.
•
•
•
•
5307- FTA Urbanized Area
Formula Program
5310 – Elderly & Disabled
Program
5311 – Non-Urbanized Area
Program
5316 – JARC (Job Access
Reverse Commute)
5317 – New Freedom
20 percent Local match can
come from other non-DOT
federal funds
Pulling together the numbers
needed to qualify for many resources
requires the collection of cost and
revenue data to identify all the
financial information required to
support a transportation program.
This data should be collected in a
format useable for both management
and budget development purposes.
Accurate, current and complete
disclosure of the financial results of
financially-assisted activities must
be made in accordance with the
financial reporting requirements of
the designated grant recipient or
subrecipient.
The Human Part of the Mobility
Management Equation
Creating a mobility management
program requires that a group of
people have a vested and shared
interest in the ‘human side’ of
transportation service. Any group
can do mobility management:
a traditional fixed route transit
operator, a group of non-profit
organizations, regional centers that
focus on human services or even a
community of citizens. The key is
that a common element is the need
for improved mobility.
There are going to be market
and program barriers that must
be addressed head-on. Funding
limitations, geography and lack
of authority to push the program
through will keep the center from
getting off the ground. And, some
market barriers, such as lack of
providers, cultural and language
barriers and regulations, will need
some more finesse and creativity to
But fundamentally, your mobility
management center should be a
one stop (place), one call (phone
number), and web-based site where
people can get information about
mobility. When the customer
“virtually” visits the center, they
can learn about eligibility, travel
training, schedule and check on a
ride, and have that ride dispatched to
a provider.
Show Me the Money
Mobility management activities
are eligible to receive funding under
SAFETEA-LU.Mobility management
is an eligible capital expense under
most Federal Transit Administration
(FTA) programs. This means FTA
can fund up to 80 percent of mobility
Community Transportation
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overcome.
When you see how your
mobility program can facilitate
communication with riders,
providers, and stakeholders,
matching riders with providers and
maximizing resources to better meet
rider needs, you’re ready to go.
First, the manager needs to select
the right people and assign and
distribute work. Once employees
are trained and developed to achieve
the specific goals of the mobility
management center, then there
needs to be a defined set of measures
for evaluating performance,
communication and decision making.
Technology Keeps the Parts
Moving Smoothly
With a mobility management
center, technology becomes the
engine ensuring services run ontime and can respond to changes
and on-demand requests from the
riding public. This is what Intelligent
Transport Systems (ITS) were
designed for: moving riders when
and where needed in the most costefficient and responsive way.
The federal government saw that
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Community Transportation
ITS was the linchpin to mobility. In
2004, USDOT’s ITS Joint Program
Office launched the MSAA initiative
– a program whose aim is to bring
communities together in providing
a single point of access to meet
mobility needs, to cut through all
the service and funding redundancy,
and establish a replicable model that
shows how providers and agencies
can utilize ITS to address the rising
costs and needs of all riders.
After an initial first design phase
with eight sites, three sites - Paducah
Area Transit System (PATS) in
Paducah, Ky; Lower Savannah
Council of Governments in Aiken,
S.C.; and the Camden County
Workforce Investment Board in
Camden County, N.J. - were
ultimately selected in early 2009 by
US DOT for the next implementation
phase to build a Travel Management
Coordination Center (TMCC).
accessibility features, and allow
service integration with existing fixed
(flex) route public transportation
services.
Software and hardware
components of the ITS allow the
mobility management center, or the
TMCC in the case of the MSAA
program, to respond to both fixed
and on-demand trip requests,
coordinate trips among many
different providers and communicate
directly – via phone, Web or texting
– with customers. For operations, an
ITS allows managers to pull data for
analysis, reporting and cost control.
According to the National
Conference of State Legislatures,
mobility management includes
the following policies, and these
alone are reason enough to utilize
automated technology:
•
The TMCC would use ITS
to: integrate point of access for
travelers, improve fleet scheduling,
dispatching, routing, streamline
reporting, billing and financial
transaction, simplify fare payment,
collection and processing, enhance
traveler information and travel
management flexibility with
•
•
•
Provide various options, such
as public transportation,
vanpool, ride-share and demand
responsive services;
Increase travel options and
traveler convenience;
Use a one–call system to provide
information and access to all
travel options; and
Use congestion management
strategies, coordinating
public transportation with
infrastructure and land use
planning.
Paducah Believes in Serving All
Needs of Community
When you look at Paducah Area
Transit System, you’ll find a provider
that is committed heart and soul to,
as they state, “thinking out of the
box.” The only 24x7 operator in
the state, Paducah Transit offers an
eight-county wide dial-a-ride service,
van pools, and will even deliver UPS
and FedEx packages, providing up
to 1,600 rides a day. And Paducah
Transit has either been a broker or a
Medicaid transportation provider for
Kentucky’s HSTD (Human Service
Transportation Delivery) program
since 1999, and is also a provider
for the Illinois state Medicaid
transportation program in three
southern Illinois counties.
Operating under the mobility
management umbrella, Paducah
Transit automates their customer
services using RouteMatch’s
advanced Geographic Information
Systems (GIS)-based routing and
scheduling system, an advanced
telephone system, automated vehicle
location, and in vehicle mobile
data communications to coordinate
transportation in their service
area. Paducah Transit has also
partnered with three other regional
transportation partners to develop
a new regional transportation
service called the Purchase Area
The ITS Opportunity
ITS presents the opportunity to seamlessly
Transportation.
Grants and additional funding
broadened the net of what they
provide for customers. With the
recent $1.4 million grant from
MSAA, Paducah Transit is using
the funding for the expansion of an
existing call center to cover a larger
geographic area and provide aroundthe-clock access to traveler support.
The strengthened call center will
add customer-oriented features,
such as a regionally connected
telephone system, Internet-based
trip reservations, automated regional
scheduling and system management
features, interactive voice response
(IVR), connections with Kentucky’s
511 travel information center, and
customer “where’s my ride” real time
status information.
Through the MSAA grant,
Paducah Transit aims for nothing
less than becoming a fully functional
mobility manager by utilizing smart
cards, developing a 211 human
service information center, and using
onboard vehicle camera systems,
kiosks in community locations, and
disaster recovery capabilities.
Wisconsin Establishes Strong
Peer Network
In Wisconsin, mobility
management began when Governor
Doyle charged heads of state
agencies to work toward eliminating
administrative barriers that prohibit
transportation coordination. In
A successful TMCC provides benefits to:
• Customers with a simplified, onestop access to unified travel support
October, 2008, the Interagency
Council on Transportation
Coordination (ICTC) was formed
with part of its mission being
to develop a state model of
coordination.
Mobility management was one of
the eleven priorities identified in the
2006 Coordinated Public Transit
- Human Services Transportation
Plans.
Through the coordination planning
process, in partnership with local
areas, the State developed nationally
recognized mobility management
programs in 29 regions across the
state. To implement the vision
locally, the State embarked on
working with local areas to hire
and provide thorough training for
the over 40 mobility managers in
the state. Once the training was
complete, these new trailblazers were
ready to hit the ground running with
an awareness of resources and best
practices and a strong peer network
with other mobility managers in the
state and across the nation.
Wisconsin’s mobility management
projects are funded by WETAP
(Wisconsin Employment
Transportation Assistance Program),
FTA New Freedom, FTA Section
5311 and/or a variety of state
funding programs and combinations
of available funding opportunities.
In 2008, only six of 72 counties
were not yet involved in mobility
management projects. Some of the
programs include: car loan programs,
Community Transportation
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MSAA Initiative Approach
Working collaboratively with the
new service, voucher and volunteer
driver programs, travel training and
other bus buddy or escort programs,
rideshare, carpool and shuttle
programs.
Whether the trip is for essential
medical care or to enhance their
quality of life, residents can rely on
the Wisconsin mobility management
program to help them get from Point
A to Point B.
Summary
In the public transportation
sector, pressure to embrace change
is mounting despite acceleration
in the expansion of traditional
services and a dramatic resurgence
in transit ridership. Lessons learned
from the broader transportation
sector, whether it is intermodal
freight, airline alliances or package
delivery, along with state of the
art information technologies and
various cooperative agreements
among service providers allow a
strategic focus on the quality of the
customer’s experience.
Mobility management is
enabling public transit and human
service transport to combine and
concentrate on the ‘customer
experience’ – designing a mobility
program designed to treat the
riding customer as an obsession
by coordinating their needs with
appropriate resources.
David J. Cyra is the Principal of
CYRA ETTC and the FTA Region IX
United We Ride Ambassador.
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Community Transportation