Public Transportation Division Assistant Director Recognized by N.C. Public Transportation Association

NCDOT Assistant Director for Mobility Development Cheryl Leonard, MPA was recently named the recipient of the North Carolina Public Transportation Association Secretary's Award.

Leonard was presented with this award at the 2014 NCPTA Annual Conference on April 18 in Charlotte.

Leonard was chosen as the recipient of this award by her peers based on criteria and performance for moving grants, assisting with visionary ideas and addressing issues timely.

The Secretary’s Award recognizes exceptional leadership and excellence.  The award seeks to recognize an individual, system or organization that surpasses expectations in embracing partnerships and collaborations that have made substantial improvement in the delivery of public transportation service or raises the bar in support of public transportation in the State.  The concept for the award was to identify individuals and organizations/businesses that work endlessly to promote public transportation, engage in policy-making and other external efforts to achieve greater mobility and prioritization of public transportation services throughout the state. 
 

NCPTA is a private, non-profit organization, incorporated on January 18, 1983, with a mission to promote and be an advocate for public transportation throughout the state. NCPTA represents public transportation providers in all 100 counties of the state. 

TRACS/WCTS Declared Winners of RouteMatch Software Excellence Award

TRACS/WakeCoordinated Transportation Service (WCTS) was awarded the RouteMatch Software Excellence in Action Award in the Innovator in Mobility Management category during the annual RouteMatch User Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, which took place March 31 through April 3.

The award recognized the TRACS/WCTS program for their innovations in implementing and using technology to improve customer service, reduce complaints, increase cost savings and improve on-time performance, as well as their use of technology to manage the delivery of a variety of mobility options.

Award winners were chosen by individual peer ballot from conference attendees representing transportation programs in the United States, Canada and Australia. Conference attendees represented not only the private business sector, but non-profits, local, county and state governments.

From Wakegov.com: Wake County Human Services Transportation Services provides a variety of transportation for agency-eligible participants. Eligibility is based on sponsorship by participating agencies/programs such as Medicaid, Public Health, Work First and other programs. Please contact your case worker for eligibility. 

Americans with Disabilities Act Workshop Held for Transit Providers

“Excellent format, good pace, well organized, great job” – it is not easy for lengthy, full-day workshops on confusing and complex legal topics to garner such positive feedback, but the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) workshops conducted in May did more than just that. 

More than 125 transit system and NCDOT employees from dozens of organizations participated in workshops over three days to refresh their knowledge and learn new concepts and applications of ADA and how it relates to transit service provision. ADA is an essential civil right that has wide-ranging, complex applications in the world of transit. Frequent training on ADA issues in transit is necessary because the standards are constantly evolving with case law decisions, administrative interpretations, and guidance on implementation.

The NCDOT Public Transportation Division sponsored the workshops and the Institute for Transportation Research and Education at N.C. State University contracted with Russell Thatcher from TranSystems to deliver the training. Russell is a nationally recognized expert in ADA and an accomplished instructor.  The events were hosted by Piedmont Authority for Regional Transportation in Greensboro.

The workshops were divided into three sections to target transit providers with specific service design characteristics, as ADA regulations vary depending on what type of transit service is provided. Day one was an in-depth training on determining ADA paratransit eligibility for urban fixed route transit systems. Day two concerned ADA paratransit operations and best practices for both community and urban transit systems operating fixed routes. ADA 101 on day three was an overview and refresher course on the ADA’s best practices and regulations for community transportation providers.

The interactive instruction techniques and comprehensive course content enabled the workshop attendees to return to their local transit systems with more knowledge about the ADA and better prepared to implement its requirements.

Community Transportation Systems Launching New Scheduling Software

Software demonstration with Area of Richmond Transit staff

Community transportation systems in Stanly and Richmond counties are preparing to transition to the TrIP_Maker scheduling and reporting software by entering customer, trip, and funding data in preparation for the system’s live launch on July 1.

TrIP_Maker and other scheduling software products provide many benefits for the user:

1. The software enables small urban and community transportation systems to easily manage their clients, organize their trips onto runs, map the runs to improve efficiency, and automatically generate bills, operating statistics, performance, and other essential management reports;
2. The software helps standardize business practices and prepare the transit systems for future advanced technologies; and
3. There is an industry-wide demand for increased performance measurements and service statistics. Implementing TrIP_Maker gives these transportation providers the tools to quickly compile and report accurate and reliable data to meet these demands.

With these two new sites on board, TrIP_Maker is now in use at 16 public transportation systems in North Carolina. The software is designed and supported by the Institute for Transportation Research and Education at North Carolina State University.

Transit systems in N.C. using TrIP_Maker