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44 with operational dollars and capital projects. Organizations such as community action agencies and senior centers sometimes fill the role of transit in delivering service to eligible individuals. Several program administrators reported looking for more of these human services agencies to work with as subrecipients, to incrementally fill gaps in outlying areas. Measuring Impacts, Small and Large Survey responses suggest different goals for using Section 5310 fundsâfor example, should funds primarily be used to maintain large and small services, transit providers or nonprofits, urban or rural services? Several agencies indicated ridership counts alone may not suffice when measuring the importance of a Section 5310-funded service. Several survey respondents said they thought it may be helpful for the FTA to provide guidance on the types of Section 5310 program performance metrics that should be examined, not by defining specific performance standards that would likely not be fair across the board, but by emphasizing the benefits of measuring out- puts other than ridership, miles traveled, and hours operated. Addi- tional performance metrics, tools, and methods for consistent data tracking and analysis would help to determine the range of impacts a Section 5310 program is having on the community it serves, and would aid local decision-makers. Innovation Is Incremental The program managers who seek to use Section 5310 funds for innovation use a wide variety of solutions; many are specific to local circumstances. Innovation in several of the Section 5310 programs plays out in small incremental changes. Some of the programs have made top-down changes, such as creating planning or mobility regional structures as in New Hampshire and Tennessee, or prior- itizing purchase-of-service funds in grant awards as demonstrated by COMPASS and Georgia DHS. Most agencies who participated in this research have used grassroots efforts to improve local outcomes over time. Some programs such as UTA describe taking advantage of other funding sources to advance more complex projects in the coordinated plans and phasing in new technology or practices. With each new transportation reauthorization, the scope of the program has grownâanother incremental process. The consolidation of New Freedom-eligible projects made mobility management a priority for many programs. Mobility management may be a carrot for transit agencies that have other resources for capital. Many agencies have also embraced technological improvements for vehicles, the longtime mainstay of the program, adding AVL and scheduling capabilities that smaller subrecipients would not otherwise have access to. The innovation has also extended to pandemic-response tools, with many subrecipients keeping the transportation service functioning even when their program doors were otherwise closed. Facing Limits The gradual addition of eligible projects has created new poten- tial opportunities, which makes prioritizing projects with limited available funding more difficult and creates a concern among sub- recipients. Furthermore, many recipients are unable to pursue new Section 5310-eligible opportunities because they are at the limit of what they can do given their administrative and operating staff capacity. Is Section 5310 Consistently Effective? Transit and human services transportation networks have proven to be an effective, essential service for older adults and individuals with disabilities, the two primary target populations for the Section 5310 program. A sentiment shared across survey respondents is that, whether measured in ridership or gaps filled, vehicle miles or mobility service outcomes, the Section 5310 program is effective in meeting the transportation needs of older adults and individuals with disabil- ities and its value goes beyond the amount of funds the program supplies. AUTHOR ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The research reported here was performed under NCHRP 20-65/ Task 79. ICF (San Francisco, CA) was the contractor for this study, with RLS & Associates, Inc. (Dayton, OH) as the subcontractor. Catherine Duffy, senior transportation planner at ICF, was the project director and principal. Charles Glover, senior associate at RLS & Associates, Inc., was the project manager and coinvestigator. Other authors of this report are Kjirsten Frank Hoppe and Laura Brown of RLS & Associates, Inc.
