Yes to this.

Day Ray you know the regional
mission here I am the mobility

manager would be and so I want to make
sure I get this right with the aging and

Health Resources Division I'm in so
I have raised here to talk to a person

specifically about simply getting there
I knew of this and they're rolling out.

Their thinking Great thanks everyone yeah
I'm really pleased to be here this morning

and I'm really impressed by the diversity
of people in the audience I wasn't really

sure what to expect so I had a couple
of questions before I get started

because I can tailor my talk based on the
kind of knowledge available in the room so

could you raise your hands again if
you're either if you're a student.

OK if you're a faculty or a research
scientist at Tech or anywhere else OK.

And if you are like
a practitioner a private sector.

OK OK And do you work in transportation
do you have expertise in transportation.

OK.

OK And how about working
with older adults OK great.

So I can blow through a couple
these slides pretty quickly.

So what I'm going to do over the next
thirty minutes I'm going to spend

a couple of minutes explaining why a.r.c
was interested in developing this website

I'm going to spend about fifteen minutes
actually demoing this site to you in kind

of pointing out some of the features
on basically the four web pages that

are the website and then I'm going to
talk about a couple like short term and

long term next steps for
what we want to do with the website.

And then I think so I guess at
ten thirty we kind of start a Q.

and A session and discussions are right
OK this is my first one so Elaine was

smart she just like grab me early on it
was like what you present so learned.

It's a good skill and

somebody us to facilitate
these kind of meetings.

So how many people have heard of
the Atlanta Regional Commission and

have some idea of what we do.

OK that's pretty good OK great so

a lot of you are familiar with
Atlanta Regional Commission.

Every every state has federally does it
needed metropolitan planing organizations

and every area also has area agencies
on aging so the state of Georgia and

around one third of the states in the
nation have both of those under one roof

so we have kind of a built in advantage to
working on human service transportation

because we already have people
with expertise in older adults and

people disabilities and
people with expertise

expertise in transportation kind of under
one roof but this kind of describes

a couple of the other programs of
work that we have an error see.

So I go quickly through these
couple of slides because since

a lot of you work with older adults
you have some familiarity with

what kind of population spread we
have now in the Atlanta region and

what we anticipate having in the future.

But long story short by twenty thirty
the Atlanta region it's going to have

one in five residents over the age of
sixty we're also looking at I think

we've got about four and a half million
people now I think are going to add two to

three million over the next
twenty to thirty years.

And as you know living in Atlanta our
built environment was basically designed

post World War two It was designed for
cars for

people who had a way to get around about
ninety percent of our current older adults

don't live near public transportation and
most older adults men will outlive their

ability to drive by about seven years
women will outlive a by about ten years so

what we're looking at is a lot of people
who are not going to be able to get where

they need to go on their own and in fact
we already see that transportation is.

The number one unmet need for
older adults in the region and.

So what are we doing about it.

We have a human services transportation
plan it was something that was mandated

by duty starting in two thousand and seven
because again we have both the AAA and

the M.P.O. under the same roof there's a
lot of collaboration and a lot of multiple

funding sources that we pull from in order
to try to bring services to populations

who cannot drive so we have money
from F T A fifty three ten and

other Federal Transit Administration
sources with money through

the Older Americans Act We also can pull
some state and some county resources and.

So basically we have some flexibility and
one thing I find interesting is

there's a lot more flexibility on the
older Americans outside than there is on

the transportation side so
that gives us a little bit more room for

innovation compared to our colleagues
who work downstairs in the M.P.O..

One thing I want to point out too is that
I think it's very easy when you look at

transportation to just focus on services
providing a ride getting somebody

where they need to go but we already
don't have the money to provide a ride to

everybody who needs one and as you'll be
aware if you work with federal funding

what we're likely to see in the future is
more demand and less resources so we need

to do the best job we can figuring out
how to use those resources responsibly so

we're focusing on planning and on thinking
about how to allocate scarce resources in

addition to just thinking about how to
provide the most drugs to the Most people.

So.

You agree so I mean you know common
sense what we want to do is.

Try to think about what are the cheapest
ways that we can help people get around

and put the most people on those
that we can OK so the cheapest thing

is going to be fixed route public transit
but again ninety percent of older adults

don't actually live near public transit
kind of next cheapest option it's going to

be carpooling vanpool after that
it's going to be volunteers and

vouchers so a lot of the programs the work
that we do it ere see are funding

those volunteer envelops your programs and
also supporting carpools and

van pulls Douglas County has
a great vanpool program.

And then basically the last would be
dedicated service so a lot of county based

agencies in the region provide
that kind of dedicated service and

then of course most expensive is going to
be taxis but you know in some cases that's

the only solution that's going to work for
somebody but so basically that's our

program out approach to how we're trying
to allocate resources so we started

this work plan in two thousand and seven
we've been improving it since then but one

of the things one of the real challenges
we had was trying to actually organized

who are all of these providers what is
actually happening on the ground so

one of the things that the simply get
their website does is help us pull some

of that together get a federal organized
get a better idea of you know what

what's your business exist and where
we might like to see some improvements.

So basically the simply get
their website was funded by

an F T A program veterans transportation
and community living initiative

they funded I think a couple of
dozen of these across the country so

most of these services people trying
to get these rides establish their

eligibility get services are done through
phone calls and so basically have to you

want to take it to the next level have it
done through through a web site instead so

it's a responsive web site which means if
you've got a smartphone and you want to

pull it out feel free and so we began
this project I think twenty eleven or

two thousand and twelve we contracted
it out to Cambridge the schematics.

To build the website for us and

basically if you think about
something like Google Maps.

Google Maps will tell you some of
the transportation modes you can take but

it doesn't include
specialized transportation so

that's really the difference that
simply get there provides over

any of the sort of standard mapping
software that you may be familiar with and

the other important thing is that at
this time it's what we're calling a trip

discovery website which means that
you can see what your options are but

you don't have the ability to
make a reservation on the site so

that's something that I'm going
to talk about in the next steps.

And again because it includes
the specialized transportation

anyone can use the site but a lot of our
marketing is targeted towards a just T.

population so that older adults
persons with disabilities

We've actually just started working with
limited English proficiency populations

that's a real area of growth in terms
of demographics in the region so

that's we just let a focus group last
week with the Paks who works with

different populations in the one
that to cab Cobb County.

OK so we're going to go to the

website.

OK So if you're familiar with KAYAK it's
a little bit the same idea you know like

a.

I don't know what to push to get.

Sorry yeah it's up on my.

Front of this but there.

Mom.

You know.

I don't know.

Who the last person of the region but
I don't know who was in there and

there was a sot there where.

OK anybody from the perfect desire to
get a look at you said the last minute

deal done that to you Do you want to come
up your party not just until I go to

the courtesy of what I
said rather it's just a.

River running on to the dirt is down and
that's why don't.

You go to any of it and see.

Something happening is that there
is a goal that we can do this so

I don't know just last year I wrote
it was by the result you will be

trying to proceed with your screen right
here right here on what was a good run for

the auction began and
he was very much OK basically

OK Thanks I actually learned from.

You.

OK so on.

It's a fairly simple less
a half how many of these kayak.

OK great so you can see here

we've basically got four
different screen options.

Somewhere with higher you've
got a fight let's see you.

Near the bottom of the page you see how
you can choose you can do round trip or

one way you've got all of
the different options.

And.

So the specialist services
would be the difference for

what you might traditionally see
on something like a woman out.

See the trip purpose is really for
our reporting purposes but

based on actual usage nobody
really uses it for anything so

that we're not collecting great data from
there but one thing that's interesting is

you can base when you can base it on
either when you want to arrive so

if you've got a doctor's appointment or
you know we basically have different

search criteria that you can use to
choose what is actually important to you.

One thing that's really interesting down
here is that if you were someone say

Fox Theater and you had a show at eight
P.M. on Saturday night and you thought

that there might be a number of people
who might be interested in coming

you can click on this you can
put you know arriving eight P.M.

Saturday night located you know arriving
at the Fox Theater if you click on this

you get a unique U.R.L. which you can use
in an e-mail blast that you send out and

say I don't want to after the fox
try this Web site instead and

it kind of pulls up automatically
i dinner my home address and

then I kind of see what are my options
to get to the Fox on time for my show.

So it's a nice little marketing piece so
the U.R.L. is crazy but you know.

You can make a it's a little
hyperlink you make a better.

Couple of other things.

You we you can sign up and
log in if you want so

say you're someone who has something
like a Dallas disappointment or

a chemo treatment and maybe it's
an unfamiliar route you want to save it so

that you can come to it multiple times and
try to look at different options for

getting there you can sign up log and
it will save your trips for

you or for instance maybe if you're
a caregiver who is looking for

a couple of different people who may
need that sort of routine transportation

you can save trips for
different people by using that sign up.

So.

We're going to keep specialist services
defy on clicked specialized services

I would skip the Options page but I'm
sure the whole sites will keep on here.

I'm going to show departing from my house.

So you can see it kind of auto
populate with destinations.

This will be an easy one but
it'll show a lot of different options so

this will be my work address.

And I want to arrive I'm going to
give myself a couple more options and

say I don't have to be there today
I need to get there on Friday.

In the afternoon.

You know in the.

In the.

Round

trip.

During the competition for.

We have done a highly
compliance audit of the site.

I can't give you all the specific details
but we have done if I would complain so

that the site is usable
by people who may have.

Different You know you can build

with.

It.

This be out here OK So

this is your options page and the reason
why we have this Options page is because

some of the transportation
providers that are on the site

have different eligibility requirements so
for instance veterans may be eligible for

a particular transportation service people
above a certain age may be eligible for

some county based
transportation services and

we also have some other providers have
We'll share sensible vehicles and

some do not so
there are some different search criteria.

Here.

And again I want to say I have
my notebook to every time we do

this presentation we get requests from
things that weren't on the initial website

that people are interested in the most
recent one was someone said it would

be nice to have an option to click if
you need an escort to ride with you

because that sometimes makes a difference
so we're keeping a running list of

things that could be improved on the site
so if you think of anything during

a presentation let me know and
I'll jot it down after we're done.

And so again the sort of standard
criteria is going to be not sure.

So I'm going to click yes on a couple
of these just to bring up a couple of

different options it's.

We've had people be reviewed for
transportation areas it's.

Because they have their service.

But one of the.

One of the challenges of doing this
is that there are things there

are a number of ways the idea is
supposed to be implemented in ways that

it may not be and.

Working in this field you uncover a lot
of challenges to that and a lot of

ways in which things may not be done
exactly the way that they should be and

it's that's kind of an ongoing
challenge to the sort of

service.

That yeah there are some providers
that provide door to door and

so what we call curb to curb and
are permitted to give some assistance so

while this page loads.

The way that we come up with these
options we have two sites that we use

one of them is called E.S.P.
it's a database that A or C.

developed a number of years ago we run.

An aging and

disabled Resource Center that gets eighty
thousand phone calls a year so basically.

What we did was build a website and
populate it with any potential

resource service answer to a question
that our colleagues may get during

these eighty thousand phone calls it's
actually used around the state so

that some of the transportation providers
you see here come from that E.S.P.

website and database and then some of
them come from open trip planner which is

the sort of foundation for A.T.L. transit
dot org If you've heard of that website so

that includes things like Georgia commute
options all the various transit agencies.

That provide services in the region so.

As you can see I mean I've chosen a trip
that has a lot of different transportation

options so
this can be a pretty overwhelming list so

there are ways that I
can basically look at.

These options here and search or

prioritize based on what I
think is the most important so.

Maybe it's so the most expensive fare
that came up a seventeen dollars This is

because it's a very short route but
if I said I can't afford any more.

Than nine dollars I scroll on this and
that kind of reduces my options so

I see what's cheaper to me.

Maybe I say I'm in a hurry I can
take forty seven minutes trying to

get to the office.

I need it to be done in twenty minutes or
less or

I might say I cannot walk one point six
eight miles that's ridiculous I need

to get it down here half a mile I
think I can walk half a mile and so

you kind of end up with OK well maybe
I don't like any of these options

maybe what I chose I'm going to need to
change a little bit maybe I could spend

a little bit more money as long as I don't
have to walk more than half a mile so

you kind of have all of these different
options so that you can prayer ties

whatever service is going to be
most appropriate to your needs.

Let's see.

So maybe you want to choose
a taxi on the way there.

Right.

So I'm going to just select the taxi.

And what is this option right
here just looks like a car right.

So I click on that will start.

This shows driving Well I'm not driving
this option is not going to work for me.

This option is carpooling Well I'm not
going to be able to figure out a carpool

between now and then so I'm going to
have to change some of my options

to try to figure out if there's a better
way to get home and taking a taxi OK.

So now.

I'm coming up with some better options for
the way to get home I'm going to take

MARTA home so
I'm going to select this one.

OK.

So now I'm to the fourth page and

based on what I've chosen again this is
trip discovery so once you get to the last

page all you get is the information for
how you could actually call or

go to a website and find out how
you would take a particular trip so

because I chose taxi this could just
basically lists all of the different taxi

companies that are available so again do I
want to call ten taxi companies to try to

find a ride well that may be what I end
up doing because that is what's coming up

on the website this is amazing is for.

I don't know how they
I don't know how they.

I don't know why it's often medical.

See.

So for
the return trip I've chosen Marta so.

This actually shows me the whole distance
where it shows me here's the pink

the shows me walking I've got the blue
that shows what my transit route is so

if I'm someone who's a little nervous I'm
not used to taking Marto have never taken

this route before this kind of shows me
the entire way that I would go and then it

shows me in the pink kind of getting off
the bus walking back to my house and

this gives me a little information about
how much more it is going to cost cost me

and gives me the website to go and
figure out how to buy a pass.

So.

If I still if I don't like these options I
can just go back to the Options page and

pick some other ones if I feel like
these are going to work for me

then I have the option of either printing
or e-mailing so I can print it if I want

to have a hard copy to take with me on my
route I can email it either to myself or

maybe to a daughter or somebody to say
look I've got a ride to the doctor this

is what I'm actually going to be doing now
you know just to have a little peace of

mind.

So that in a nutshell is what the site is.

We had a soft launch in March and
then tell you a little bit about

the marketing that we're doing for it and
what our plans are for the future but

that that's this is what this is
what we've got now to work with and.

These are this is the this is the

site.

OK.

So since we launched in March we've
had some train the trainer sessions

so as the Area Agency on Aging we
work with a number of R.S.V.P.

volunteers which are usually kind of.

Younger retired people a lot of times
had a professional background and

they do a number of really great
voluntary services for us so

we've had twenty three so
far go through a.

The trainer session we've got another one
scheduled tomorrow with eleven people.

We've had the last time I did a reporting
we had one thousand and twenty seven

unique trips and we've got some written
collateral that we hand out at events so

we've had seven public events with
this many thousand potential users.

The outreach that we've done.

Nothing like the reach that we've done to
our regional partners these are people

like Cobb community transit disability
link goodwill the V.A. Salvation Army So

we've gone back to our original partners
who helped us with focus groups when

we were originally trying to build the
website to say what would be helpful so

we're doing trainings for
those employees if they're interested and

for any supportive services
staff that they may work with.

We're also reaching out within our
existing network to private and

public housing staff we're looking
at parish nurses trying to build

relationships with them and then General
again supportive services staff so

whether that's case managers caregivers
and of course the county based agencies

that we're already working with.

Actually are something on the.

Story.

So for our longer term future plans for
the website we were awarded a grant from

the Federal Transit Administration about
a month ago and we're going to be spending

the next eighteen months working on how
to take the site from Trip discovery

to what is sometimes called either.

Trip tree arching or trip exchange.

But in planning we talk about
the highest and best use or the.

You know most fitting in appropriate
resources so you know right now if I don't

simply get there I pick the priorities
that work best for me but

what we would like to have in
the future and what is a system whereby

we see troops come in and we have people
who are eligible to receive services and

we work with them to try to figure
out what is the best solution for

them so based on the resources that we
have available where the person actually

lives and where they need to go so we're
going to be working with Ride connection

they are out of Portland Oregon they
are kind of the national leader in human

service transportation work they've been
doing this for about thirty years so

they're going to be partnering with us
almost as like sort of individual as

technical assistance to talk about they
have not yet got a trick tree arching

system as a sort of online software
application but they're in the kind

of final stages of putting that together
and getting it on their website so

we're going to be working with them and
we're also going to put out an R.F.P.

to find a software developer who
can help us try to figure out

what that website might look like so
what we have the money to do from F.D.A.

is almost like a thought or a planning
exercise where we're going to work for

eighteen months to find out what keep
abilities does this online software

application need to have how should
it be designed and then once

we're finished go after funding to say you
know we know what it is that we need we

know what capabilities the site needs
to have and how it needs to function so

we can put out an R.F.P.
to actually have the site built so.

So again what we'll be doing is
building or creating a sort of I don't

think it's a wireframe I'm sorry I'm not
going to know all the technical terms but

what we're going to be doing is
creating an online software application

that's going to coordinate all of
the different agencies and providers that

are currently and simply get there in
a way that seamless to the user so

a way in a way in which it's easier for
peace.

Well to try to get access to the
transportation services that are out there

so that that's what we're going to be
working on over the next year or two.

So this is my phone and
e-mail at the bottom here and

I think we're going to have Q.
and A for the next little while.

Right.

Thank.

You yes.

Randy actually.

Yeah good things.

In.

Life and we.

Aren't any plain language
around I think that you know.

There are very little
in doubt here in part.

Is that anywhere.

Near here that is in
the area of opportunity.

We we did some great work with
a consulting firm who helped us

with a lot of the research so if you inch
and you mention vouchers for instance.

You know what makes sense to me as someone
who might take a taxi is OK right now I've

got two birds got my Pay Pal have got my
smart phone I put everything in there

could you not have a taxi driver who has
one of those little smart readers and

you swipe your card and you get on the
taxi nobody in the US is actually doing

this for these voucher programs
everyone is still using paper so

one of our goals is definitely
how can we make it easier

to administrate these programs
because we're working and

Maria is actually leading those the the
different fifty three ten's contracts

which we give to providers around the
region and the administrative burden to

provide these services in some cases
is almost prohibitively large so.

I think that because this is
a new service it tends to be.

Run very differently than you might
imagine other transportation services

being run and so we're doing a lot
of work with those providers and

with other agencies who might be
interested in providing these services to

talk about you know what are some best
practices for budgeting what are some what

are the ways in which you can have more
money actually going to the service and

less on the overhead How would your
process be different if you were able to

cut your overhead budget by
you know some percentage so.

There's a lot of a lot of
the providers tend to be you know

non-profits or
pieces of county based agencies and

because it's fairly new everyone is
learning so people are very interested in

doing anything they can to help these
populations but what we're trying to do

is give them the tools to succeed and to
be able to be competitive in applying for

funding and being able to do a good job
allocating as many resources as possible

in actual service rather
than administration.

But yeah again so I mean I think the far

more challenging than actually you know
working with the right connection and

a software provider is going to be that
the website is only going to be as

successful as the amount of providers
that we get to participate so.

You know the whole point of trip reaction
is saying you know well maybe someone is

actually eligible for MARTA or C.C.T.
or Gwinnett paratransit just someone

you know is this somebody who's unfamiliar
with using transit do we have volunteers

who do travel training who can either
participate in a little group class or can

get some one on one mentoring where where
scheduling a meeting with Cobb County to

go out there and work with their senior
services in their transit staff but

again that's that's going to be ten
percent of the older adult population so

is there a way that
volunteer driving can be.

Scaled up can be expanded to different
parts of the region because volunteer

driving is going to be highly localized
I'm not going to be interested in driving

that many miles outside of my little you
know area that I'm comfortable with.

So.

It's a it's a very challenging space to
work in and there are a lot of it's hard

to kind of structure our work plan and
think about what's the most desperate need

and how do we work on that because it's
such a it's kind of an overwhelming task.

That.

Yes.

Well I think that.

Those are not currently in the system
another challenge to the E.S.P.

database is right now it's opt in so

one of the things that we would like to do
is actually work with Goober and lift and

say Would you like to be
a part of this database.

One of the challenges we had in this
was we had providers who said Don't

include me in this database of already got
a waiting list the last thing I need is

more people calling me for a ride when I
don't have a service to provide them so

that is where I think there's a great
opportunity with Uber and left because

they are not at that point to my knowledge
they would be somebody who would have a

lot more capability a much greater supply
and ability to meet the needs of these

people.

If you.

Want.

And.

With.

Yes we did conduct focus groups that was
actually before I was hired A or C. so

I believe we had several focus groups with
different populations to see how usable

the website design would be for
them but again one challenge is that.

People with disabilities tend to have
a very high A To my knowledge a very high.

Access to computers knowledge of using
Smart Phones whereas with older adults

it's very different especially depending
on how much older you go and because.

A lot of people that we might want to work
with are low income so that's why a lot of

our marketing has been targeted to
supportive services staff to say you know

maybe the seniors who come to your senior
center are not very tech savvy but

if you as the senior center manager know
how to use the website you can actually

work to help with them and show them
a couple of different providers that they

may be able to use so we thought that
would be a great way to expand our reach.

When you receive this through the website
already thousands of holes some of those

are the person use the right of or
sometimes.

Parents will use those.

I don't know the percentage but I know
that we do get both a lot of like for

instance a lot of times we get out of
state calls especially after the holidays

you know I went home to visit my mom and
going to county and

her health has declined in
a way that I hadn't realized So

what is going to be available
to me that I can help her with.

I don't have a percentage
that you know yes.

The very helpful.

Thing.

For me.

He'll be.

Here with.

People all over.

The.

Road with.

Here.

Right there in the.

Here.

I don't think that's a question
that's come up before but I'll.

One.

Jot that down because I think that would
be interesting the other open trip planner

software that is there's one of
the site one of the foundations for

the site is something
the Air Sea Grant a developed and

we now manager but I don't know if
that would be a possibility for the

future.

OK.

Are you going there or
are there who are sick.

Of the options.

The reason why Mr Song Why don't
you list if you still feel

that you should they might go for
the raise for

the folks who were born.

Here or there was just.

This is.

What.

You see right there.

I think that's a possibility for
the face to.

I don't know that that's
something that we can do now.

You

know.

Here we.

Are.

Right now.

Yes.

We have a I know we have a Help button and

we also have a place
to leave feedback for.

A lot of times it's a little more specific
you know I know there's a taxi company

that works in Henry County but
a lot of times it is to you for general

complaints or concerns about
the site Yes I mean so you know you.

Say that.

Marta somewhere.

You know there.

One of you said you know what.

We know we haven't talked about
a rating system that's something

that's.

I mean one you know
your thoughts are mine.

So I.

Really.

Really.

Really.

You know I haven't thought
about a reminder but

I like I like the idea train thing.

You know.

With you know you're not a whole
home was no longer in you know

you and.

I know it's possible I think another
contract that I manage ing there using

route map software and I think that I mean
it's an upgrade but I think that route

much has the ability to say you know I see
that you've got a vehicle that's scheduled

to arrive in twenty minutes so it sounds
kind of like an automated voice mail.

On her.

Door.

And there's.

A little.

Looks like.

We're still.

Waiting on that route or at least.

Know where we're

you.

Know.

Or.

But also.

More.

Morning right.

Here.

You go here.

The war.

Over.

There.

If you.

Have a rounded music thing
you are anything I mean.

We are always seeking funding.

Really and we should collaborate and
find somebody with the money.

We had not thought about
additional user testing but

I know that just in the course of
doing the training we have come

up with a number of different suggestions
the contract that we have with Cambridge

allows some kind of limited maintenance
and upgrade so like every few weeks

they're doing another iteration of
the site that has some improvements so

we do have the ability to incorporate
some changes now over the next year but

I we have not don't believe that
we have funding specifically for

additional user focus groups.

And.

You see you see right now.

We're going to be working
that out yes well water.

I think a lot of times in this work you
need a champion so they've had this

incredible executive director who founded
the nonprofit about thirty years ago

they've also been partnering with
their trying to transit authority for

I think at least a decade and.

There are a lot of I mean Portland it's
built to a much denser level I think

I think that they have a tri county area
where it's of course we have a ten county

unless you count them a say which is like
twenty nine counties or something so

there are some advantages in that way but
I think a lot of it is that

they've had leadership for thirty years
for someone who has a passion for this and

has been kind of pushing the envelope with
innovation for decades so we're excited to

be working with them so I'm on I have we
haven't actually launched the project yet

but I've got bi weekly calls with their ID
manager to start learning more about what

it is they do you know.

All right well thanks everyone I was
really pleased to have this opportunity.

Thank you.