Open Platform to Attract, Organize, and Coordinate Volunteers for Rural and Small Urban Transit

One of the most critical challenges facing rural and small urban transit agencies in the U.S. today is the scarcity of available funds. The majority of operational expenses for transit services in all sizes of markets are traditionally covered by direct revenues, especially fares. However, the fare recovery ratio is often smaller for rural agencies than for urban agencies. Meanwhile, the largest single contributor to operational expenses for rural and small urban transit agency is employee compensation, which can often reach 75% of the operational costs. Because volunteerism is often interwoven into the culture of rural areas and small towns, there is great potential to use volunteers to operate certain transit services. Nevertheless, the barriers to volunteerism, including attracting, coordinating volunteers, and addressing liability issues, inhibit the widespread use of volunteers by transit agencies. The project team will create a prototype support platform to help transit agencies attract, organize, and coordinate volunteers in providing transportation services to customers. The platform will facilitate the recruitment of volunteers by proving an easy to use system to explore and volunteer for transportation services offered by the local transit agencies. We will develop optimization models and algorithms to guide the decisions of transit providers (e.g., assigning volunteers to different transit operations including driving and service, and identifying costumer requests that can be served by volunteers and assigning available ones). Overall, this platform can greatly benefit rural and small urban agencies, which are often unable to sustain, let alone improve and expand, their services and are often unable to fund items such as operational improvements, updates to their information platforms (e.g., websites), and data collection. Reducing the largest portion of the operational costs could help agencies save money and improve other aspects of their services that can, in turn, attract new passengers and increase revenues.