Commercial Paratransit in the United States: Service Options, Markets, and Performance

Paratransit has the potential to produce substantial mobility and environmental benefits by attracting large numbers of urban trips that otherwise would be made by private automobile. Experiments with shared-ride taxis and jitney services in Seattle, San Diego, Indianapolis, and several other U.S. cities in the late 1970s and 1980s demonstrated there is a market demand for frequent, on-call, and sometimes door-to-door services that are cheaper than exclusive-ride taxis and sometimes even public transit (Frankena and Paulter, 1984; Cervero, 1985). Importantly these types of services blend the best features of mass transit (i.e., multiple-occupancy) and the private automobile (i.e., flexible, on-call, point-to-point services). Because of allegations of unfair competition and "cream-skimming," however, many local and state authorities introduced or tightened regulations over the past three decades that effectively banned competitive, free-enterprise paratransit from most American cities. In addition, labor protection legislation, such as the 13(c) provision of the Federal Transit Act, as well as capital and operating subsidies to public transit have placed private paratransit operators at a competitive disadvantage, limiting most to specialized, contract services such as for the elderly and disabled.