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77 <br /> Chapter 4:Planned Services <br /> areas. There will be a fare and the service will not be available evenings and weekends <br /> (route deviation will not even be available every weekday initially). The adopted fare <br /> policy allows free rides for children age 0-5, with a reduced $i fare for children age 6-17 ($a <br /> for deviated trips); so that issue is partially addressed. Additional marketing and <br /> information is needed and is discussed as a staff function in Chapter 5. A key question is <br /> how much additional demand response capacity might be needed and what it would cost. <br /> If the Health Department has n,000 unduplicated clients and Z% of them need <br /> transportation, and each of them needs a monthly appointment (all assumptions), this <br /> would be an additional need for 5,28o one-way demand response trip. This number is <br /> close to the annual capacity of a demand response vehicle with limited grouping of trips <br /> (at 3 boardings per service hour).As noted above, this study includes two additional full- <br /> time demand response vehicles. Clearly, this need could be addressed by the additional <br /> hours one full-time vehicle could provide. <br /> Department of Social Services/Non-Emergency Medical Transportation (NEMT) <br /> The other major human service program user of OPT services is the Non-Emergency <br /> Medical Transportation (NEMT) program managed by the Department of Social Services <br /> to provide medical trip transportation to Medicaid clients. The future of NEW demand <br /> for OPT services is not clear. The state's NEW program has been focusing on the lowest <br /> cost transportation options. The NEW program might want to consider purchasing fares <br /> for clients to use the expanded OPT services rather than contract for dedicated trips. In <br /> many counties, the use of coordinated transportation providers has been declining as <br /> more trips are addressed by providing gas vouchers to clients (or families). Finally, there <br /> is a possibility that changes in the overall state Medicaid program could move this entire <br /> program to regional or statewide brokerages, which would then contract with private <br /> providers and effectively eliminate this role for agencies like OPT. Therefore, no <br /> expansion capacity has been included for NEMT. <br /> SUMMARY COMMENTS <br /> To date, the county has not adopted any policies regarding expected ridership and <br /> performance for these services. In the future, if some of the planned services do not <br /> generate the expected ridership, there should be some criteria regarding the point at <br /> which it makes more sense to discontinue a service and shift the vehicles and funding to <br /> an alternative service that is more like to generate ridership. Some of these unfunded <br /> expansions might be funded in that way, and the selection of expansion options should <br /> depend to some extent on the performance of existing services. For example, one option <br /> would be adding service days to the route deviation service in the zones where people are <br /> using it more. <br /> KFH <br /> NCDOT Orange County 61 <br /> Transit Assessment Study <br />