GDOT On-Call General Transit Consulting Services

Purpose of Project

The Georgia Department of Transportation’s Intermodal Division has an On-Call Transit Planning contract to provide planning support services.

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Our Role on the Project

MMP led the 2050 Georgia Rural and Human Services Transportation (RHST) Plan Update. This plan evaluated the existing RHST services and current and future needs, projecting to 2050 across the state. One of the top objectives for the plan was to learn how to better coordinate public transit (Section 5311) and human services (Section 5310 and Medicaid) transportation to leverage vehicles, drivers, and administrative staff. Each county and regional commission was evaluated for gaps in rural public transit services, and gaps in human services coordination.  MMP was not only the Project Manager but also led the development of the Vision and Goals as well as conducted the Alternatives Analysis, which evaluated potential projects, programs, and policies based on how well they align with the goals and objectives. Several recommendations came out of the Plan to coordinate these services in the form of policies, programs, and individual projects. Several recommendations are moving forward into implementation. 

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MMP is leading the Northwest Georgia Regional Transit Development Plan (TDP). This plan is a comprehensive look at transit services provided in the region and looks for opportunities to coordinate services to provide service to the entire region, including very rural and mountainous areas. One alternative will be to evaluate the feasibility of a coordinated regional system and opportunities to leverage human services transportation (Section 5310) to lighten the burden on public transit to provide senior trips and expand to provide trips for jobs. 

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MMP supported the Statewide Intercity Bus Study to identify potential intercity bus routes across the state. MMP led the Existing Conditions and Service Routes Evaluation.  MMP was responsible for quantifying the demand of cities across the state and identifying city pairs for new routes. Under this task, MMP examined existing services to develop a baseline for the study. The tasks involved creating a profile of potential connecting services and intercity bus services, such as operating characteristics, schedules, routing, operational performance, ridership, fares, fleets, transfer policies, and park-and-ride locations.  Following, MMP was responsible for the Cost, Benefits, and Impacts Evaluation in which the operations, management, and capital needs will be estimated.  MMP also projected revenues from passenger fares and compared the benefits and costs of each potential intercity bus alternative.  This analysis compared alternatives to socioeconomic characteristics to identify potential impacts on populations protected by Title VI and/or the Executive Order on Environmental Justice.  MMP is also helping to support all documentation, data collection, mapping, and final deliverables. 

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Moreover, MMP led an Intercity Bus Whitepaper outlining how other states utilize the 5311(f) set-aside for intercity bus service and best practices for reducing the set-aside where the full amount is not needed for adequate service. Further, the whitepaper provided guidance on how to evaluate intercity bus projects to prioritize the 5311(f) funding. MMP also supported the Call for Projects and evaluation of intercity bus projects in 2021 to allocate the FY ‘22 5311(f) funding. 

 

Lastly, MMP serves in a supporting role for the Statewide Transit Plan Update and focuses on how to integrate the plan into other statewide initiatives within GDOT, as well as the investment strategies and available funding for recommendations. 

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Problem Solvers

One challenge with this project was finding publicly available information from peer states the offered insight into the decision-making process behind those states’ decision either to utilize the required 15 percent 5311(f) set-aside for intercity bus service or provide a certification letter indicating that the state was meeting its intercity bus needs and, therefore, did not need to set aside the 15 percent. To address this challenge, MMP combed DOT websites and academic research on transit funding to find all relevant information. This was an intensive research effort that resulted in a white paper that was highly informative and useful to GDOT.