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Abstract
Local public transportation agencies provide a nonemergency human transport service to nearby
hospitals and doctors’ offices. Some users require specialized medical services at a hospital located
out of the normal service area. In the Piedmont/Triad region of North Carolina, the Piedmont
Authority for Regional Transportation (PART) began PART Connections in April 2004, to provide
two daily transportation services between the Piedmont/Triad area and the UNC/Duke medical
areas.
Using current operating cost data of participating transportation systems, round-trip costs to
the UNC/Duke medical areas from each county and to the nearest PART Connections stop are
estimated. Given the actual number of passengers served by PART Connections during the first ninemonth
period of the service, the net saving in the operating cost by participating PART Connections
is estimated for each system. Then, the total service hours saved by using PART Connections are
estimated for each system, and are used to estimate the number of additional passengers served
within the system.
It is estimated that PART Connections could provide a net saving of $38,000 on operation
expenses annually to the participating four county transportation systems. More importantly, PART
Connections would enable the four county systems to provide more than 10,000 additional passenger
trips within each county annually, by using the saved resources. In addition, 12 local community
transportation providers in 15 western counties of the Piedmont/Triad region, which currently do
not participate in PART Connections, are estimated to save a modest $9,600 in total annually, by
using PART Connections.