HomeMy WebLinkAbout10 21 20 TAB Staff AgendaPlease contact the Transit Advisory Board at TAB@ci.oshkosh.wi.us with any questions or concerns
TRANSIT ADVISORY BOARD
STAFF AGENDA ITEMS
October 21, 2020
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
PUBLIC COMMENT
OLD BUSINESS
NEW BUSINESS
1. BOARD VACANCY
2. RIDERSHIP UPDATE – Ridership remains low during the pandemic on fixed
route and paratransit services. After hours paratransit service was low before the
pandemic and remains low at present time.
STAFF STATEMENTS
3. UPDATE ON THE PARATRANSIT REQUEST FOR PROPROSAL (RFP) - As
the board is aware, we requested proposals to provide our non-ambulatory paratransit
service. There is a separate contract for ambulatory paratransit service that expires at the
end of 2021. Paratransit service is required by ADA to be provided by all systems that
operate fixed route service. Paratransit service needs to be equivalent to fixed route
service. This means we must offer paratransit the same service hours as fixed route. Go
Transit provides 24/7 paratransit service which exceeds ADA requirements. We only
received one proposal which was from Running Inc. The initial proposal included a rate
which was about 50% higher than the current contract. We discussed the reasons for the
drastic proposed rate increase with Running Inc. They stated the main reasons were the
reduction in the number of rides expected (pre-Pandemic and at present time), increased
labor costs, limited economies of scale and the need to provide 24/7 service. They
indicated they have been losing money for over a year on this contract but wanted to
honor the contract therefore they continued the service.
TAB AGENDA ITEMS 2 October 20, 2020
After discussing this with Running Inc., we negotiated a one year extension of their
current contract to expire Dec. 31 20121 with a rate of $35. This one year extension will
give us a chance to evaluate our service hours and retool the request for proposal. This
extension will also allow us to bid the ambulatory and non-ambulatory paratransit
services together. This will increase the number of rides available which will make the
contract more attractive to prospective service providers by offering them the chance to
achieve economies of scale. Since we only have one response, we did not convene an
evaluation committee. We recommend a one year contract extension for Running Inc. at
$35 per ride and are looking for the Board’s support. We plan to use the coming months
to evaluate our paratransit service offering including hours available and ridership prior
to issuing the next RFP in 2021.
4. UPDATE ON COVID19 PREVENTIVE MEASURES - GO Transit has installed
permanent driver/passenger barriers on 13 of our 16 buses as of this memo. The
remaining 3 should be completed by the end of the month.
We have ordered permanent air filtration systems to be installed on all buses. This video
shows how they work. Air Filtration Video. We have installed the first 4 of these units
and anticipate installing the remaining 12 by the end of the month.
We are working on purchasing quantum automatic wheelchair securement systems for
our 12 newest buses. There are 2 wheelchair securement areas on each bus. This
purchase will allow at least one wheelchair rider per bus the opportunity to secure
themselves. The other wheelchair securement area will continue to offer the traditional
manual securement system. The automated system will avoid close contact between the
rider and transit driver. We will show a short video on how this system works: Quantum
Video
5. TRY TRANSIT/FREE FARE DAY – NOV. 3
FUTURE AGENDA REQUESTS
ADJOURNMENT