Notes from service provider meetings

Fleet Quality/Maintenance

1. Maintenance of vehicles varies, with no real correlation between fleet size. Some agencies have full time maintenance staff. Some do basic maintenance in-house (oil changes, etc) and use dealers for the rest, some use local mechanics and dealers for all work. Most who use outside work have built good relationships with area mechanics.
2. Overall agencies worry about availability of vehicles through 5310 and other sources, but most feel that they are able to keep ahead of their fleet in terms of maintenance, and are able to put enough vehicles on the road.
3. Some agencies have said that certain model years of CVP vehicles have had maintenance issues.
   

Service notes.

1. Most private agencies that provide transportation had down-time during the day, and operate under split shifts (route in the morning ot pick up clients, evening route to take them home). Most would like to have a use for their vehicles during the day, but vehicle sharing/billing is a conern and a hurdle that needs to be worked out.
   

Coordination - common road blocks

1. Vehicle Sharing - many issues raised such as insurance, billing, depreciation costs, etc.
   
2. In order to share rides, organizations would have to work out billing. Many workshop-type providers dont' have a specific line item in their funding for transportation, which makes it tricky to arrive at a cost for shared use.
   
3. Smaller public providers would like to contract with workshops and private providers to expand their capabilities, but in many cases the private providers have a bigger fleet and logistically would be difficult to transition to a private provider.
4. Quality of service is something that would need to be guaranteed. Many private providers seem like they would be willing to discuss shifting their transportation to a public provider, but there are many details that would need to be worked out.
5. Nearly all private agencies expressed that if the conditions were right, they would be willing to contract out their services.
   

Hiring

1. Most providers are able to find an adequate number of drivers, although finding quality drivers that stick around can be hard.
2. Most private providers use part time help working split shifts. Typical drivers are retired individuals.
3. Pay is usually slightly above minimum wage. Experienced drivers for public providers, or drivers who serve as trainers can earn up to $13-14.00 an hour.

Gaps in Service:

1. Evening/Weekend service has been suggested. Many providers are slowely expanding their hours, but funding is limited.
   
2. Out of county trips to larger metro areas can be a large drain on transit agencies.
   

Possible Steps toward coordination:

1. Website to post out-of-district trips, possible opportunity to share rides over long distances.
2. Explore possibly combining JARC/New Freedom grants into a coordination effort between agencies.
3. Establish some sort of local/regional vehicle pool so agencies who have a vehicle in the shop can loan one, allowing them to operate smaller fleets.
4. Regional maintenance center of some kind has been suggested,