Innovative Operating Strategies for Paratransit Services with Zoning

Paratransit services constitute a large industry that provides transportation services to disabled and elderly customers across the country. Demand for these services has been growing since the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law in 1990 and will continue to grow in the foreseeable future. Rather than adopt a centralized operating strategy, some large transit agencies use decentralized zoning for easier management and better overall reliability (i.e., higher percentage of on-time performance). However, this strategy is inefficient, because a service provider's vehicle is not allowed to pick up customers outside its own service zone. This ban hampers ridesharing and increases the empty trip miles driven. To address this issue, the study reported in this paper explored innovative ADA operating strategies that allowed service providers to serve both trips of cross-zonal customers in need of round trip rides. Three innovative policies were proposed. New algorithms were developed to incor...