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6. IMPLEMENTATION AND DISSEMINATION PLANS
This chapter restates the eight key findings as integral to the
implementation of this research. It then describes what strategies should be
adopted internally by an organization in order to implement the key findings. A
dissemination plan follows, which outlines the audiences for this report and the
suggested media and mechanisms for distribution.
IMPLEMENTATION PLAN
The key research findings presented in Chapter 2 outlined factors important
to the successful use of public transportation to reduce the economic, social and
human costs of personal immobility. These key findings are the cornerstone of an
Implementation Plan to move this research into practice. The eight findings are
capsulized below. Refer to Chapter 2 for details.
I. Retaining basic public transportation services;
2. Providing comm~'nity-wide economic benefits;
3. Forming nontraditional partnerships;
4. Blending an array of Herman and monetary resources;
5. Bundling transportation and support services
6. Linking with economic development efforts;
7. Planning regionally; and
S. Capitalizing on simple ideas and programs.
As identified in the findings above, coordination with organizations across
other strata of society will be needed to enhance options for personal mobility. This
chapter describes what an organization can do within its own cultural environment
to go forward with implementation. The transportation organizations visited in the
case studies had certain strategies in common that have led to their success, which
can be replicated by others. These strategies can be summarized in the following
checklist for success:
Checklist for Success
1. Exert leadership.
2. Win internal support from the stay and the policy-makers.
3. Adopt a mobility management mission.
4. Build community support.
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1. Exert leadership.
Things happen when a leader takes charge. Leaders experiment; leaders
challenge the status quo; leaders inspire others with their vision. The vision of an
MTA Board member to use telemobility in planning development at Los Angeles
light rail stations led to the Blue Line TeleVilIage. In Miami, starting the Medicaid
Metropass Program required energy and commitment to combat bureaucracy. The
Medicaid Program Administrator was not particularly encouraged by the Florida
Agency for Health Administration; instead she took it upon herself to work through
obstacles in order to implement the program. Her cohort in the Metropass
Program, the MDTA Deputy Director, summarized a leader's bias toward action by
defining the difference between an administrator and a manager: "An
administrator telIs you what you cannot do what the rules are. A manager
rewrites the rules to get things done."
Note that the checklist pertains to the internal environment of an
organization. There are many external barriers that an organization may face
which may be largely out of its control. Some examples are land use decisions,
federal funding levels, the political environment in the region, the local economy,
and government regulations.
However, even these external barriers can be influenced by leadership.
When her community objected to a large parking structure at the Frui~vale BART
station in Oakland, the Chief Executive Officer of the Spanish Speaking Unity
Council led a planning process to change that land use decision into one supporting
a Transit Village. She also overcame the conventional viewpoint in the political
environment, which held that infill development in the inner city is infeasible, by
putting together a strong funding package to support the development. Another
example of combating external barriers is legislation that the Chesterfield County
Coordinating Council (CCCC) intends to introduce in South Carolina. The CCCC
wants to demonstrate that changing state law to allow adult riders on school buses
in rural areas can increase mobility while continuing to safeguard schoolchildren.
Leaders are needed at many levels of society to solve the difficult issues of
immobility that have been presented in this research. As these examples
demonstrate, the collaborative efforts needed to tackle problems of immobility point
to a role for social services agencies, community-based organizations, local
governments, and employers, as well as transportation organizations. Public
transit cannot tackle immobility alone.
Nonetheless, mobility is the mission of transportation organizations. Tt is
proper that transportation organizations be among the first to exert leadership in
addressing immobility. If transportation organizations do not take on this role,
they may be preempted by others with their own agendas. For example, welfare
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reform is a burning issue at the time of this research. It is possible that money
could be diverted from mainline transit services to new services directed at welfare
recipients entering the fob market. instead of integrating those new services into
., ~ ,' , ~ _
. ~ · . · . ~ · ~ · ~ ~ · 1 1 · · 1 · _ 1 · ~ 1_ ~ 1 -_ _ ~
the existing system. transit agencies need to seize one Nave In knew realm o'
expertise to insure that the best alternatives are implemented. If they fail to exert
leadership in addressing immobility, the problems of immobility will worsen, and
transportation organizations will have failed in their mission.
2. Win internal support from staff and policy-makers.
A leader, by definition, needs followers. If the leader fails to build support
within the organization, the innovation will languish or even be sabotaged. In the
case of the Blue Line TeleVillage, some within M'1'A saw trin reduction through use
~. . ~ . ~At
~ _
ot~the lntemet, a goal ot the leleVlllage, as a conflict with the agency's mission of
increasing transit ridership. Because the project was not implemented with
operating funds, the internal resistance was overcome. However, as consequence of
the lack of involvement by the operations division, inadequate fiber and connection
points for the TeleVillage were laid during construction of the rail line. Although
the TeleVillage now operates using ISDN lines, it is not the optimum solution that
would have been possible with full agency support.
The culture of any organization hoping to solve immobility problems must
nurture an environment in which the key findings can be implemented. This means
encouraging staff to exercise leadership by taking the initiative and being creative.
It means preventing bureaucracy and hierarchy from stifling innovation. At MDTA
leadership for the Metropass came from a transit planner. Her supervisor gave her
and her idea the support within the organization to develop the pilot program and
expand it. At SEPTA, the Horsham Breeze was successfully implemented because
the organization was flexible enough to respond with creative approaches to funding
and service. In both these instances, the staff and policy-makers were supportive of
experimentation.
3. Adopt a mobility management mission.
The definition of mobility management is "an institutional state of mind that
emphasizes moving people instead of the mode of transportation." (103) ~ For
instance, with Immediate Needs, MTA moves people in a program designed to meet
the community's transportation needs rather than attempting to fit those needs into
its traditional bus and rail system. Its Blue Line TeleVillage is another example of
creating mobility through nontraditional means-in this case, through technology.
This type of flexibility will be required as transit agencies design services for those
affected by the welfare-to-work reforms.
Mobility managers recognize the customers' needs and design services to
respond to them. Numero Uno's free shoppers' shuttle is an excellent private-sector
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example of this niche marketing. PDRTA and OATS are two public-sector models of
such an entrepreneurial approach. They seek out opportunities and present a menu
of service delivery options to the potential customer. Theirs is the opposite of an
institutional state of mind that offers a single product with a "one size fits all"
approach.
Elective mobility management requires viewing the passenger
transportation system as a whole. Specifically, mobility management means
brokering, facilitating, encouraging, coordinating, and managing both
nontraditional and traditional services to expand the array of transportation
services to diverse consumer groups. (104) This is an inclusionary definition which
envisions responsibility from many partners to assist public transportation in
accomplishing its mission of mobility.
4. Build community support.
Three of the key findings are dependent on this strategy for successful
implementation. Organizations cannot form nontraditional partnerships (Finding
3), bundle transportation and support services (Finding 5), and plan regionally
(Finding 7) in the absence of community support.
MTA's Immediate Needs Transportation Program and OATS, Inc. are shining
examples of building community support using two very different approaches in two
extremely different settings-one in the largest cogency in the nation and the other
in a very rural state. As a large bureaucracy, MTA chose not to implement
Immediate Needs directly. Rather, MTA built community support for its program
through respected community-based organizations as brokers. The 600 social
service agencies that are participants, along with a waiting list to be accented into
.. . . .. ~,~ . ~
the program, attest to the success of MTA's strategy. OATS has built community
support by delegating important functions of the operation to County Committees.
An annual 76,000 hours of volunteer work has resulted from the sense of ownership
that OATS has thereby created in the 87 counties it serves.
Building community support takes energy and visibility on the part of transit
staff. It means not only attending community meetings but also setting up such
meetings. In designing increased access to lobs and health care. it means steaming
outside the transportation field and learning other industries' terminology and key
players. But the rewards can be a wider constituency of support for transit, an
enhanced image of transit, availability of new funding sources and helm an
resources, and, consequently, more participation in society by those now afflicted by
immobility.
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DISSEMINATION PLAN
The results of this research are particularly timely because they coincide
with rapid changes occurring in welfare and health care delivery. For this reason,
dissemination should be enlarged beyond the traditional transportation audiences
to practitioners in the social services and health care fields as well.
The Methodology Guide is a product of the research which has permanent
applicability for transportation professionals. It describes methods to quantify the
benefits and costs of immobility, as illustrated by specific examples in the case
studies. Thus, it is a too} to measure the implications of additions or reductions in
service upon the larger community.
Audiences
Primary audiences for distribution include:
Federal agencies
Welfare to Work task force, U.S. Department of Transportation
Intergovernmental Affairs, U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services
Office of Community Planning and Development, U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development
Employment and Training Administration, U.S. Department of Labor
State and County agencies that correspond to the federal agencies listed above
Public transit
Public transit agencies' staff and governing boards
Divisions of public transit within state departments of transportation
APTA and CTAA, and corresponding organizations at the state level
Private contractors
Consultants and university researchers specializing in public
transportation
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Secortclary audiences for ctistribution include:
National organizations of government officials and their corresponding state
organizations, such as:
National Govemors' Association
National Association of Regional Councils
U. S. Conference of Mayors
National League of Cities
International City Managers Association
National Association of Counties
National organizations of social welfare and health care professionals
Civil rights organizations
Empowerment Zones/Enterprise Communities
Organizational Responsibility
Disseminating the results of the research is a role for TRB and APTA, as the
cooperating organizations that make up TCRP, as well as for CTAA. Reaching the
secondary audiences will require working together with many other organizations.
This is precisely the type of coordination called for in the federal welfare reform
legislation, the Work Opportunity and Personal Responsibility Act. The
mechanisms for coordination being established now for welfare reform at every
government level will be a good avenue for dissemination.
Content and Mechanisms
1. Mass media distribution Because of the timeliness of this report, mechanisms to
distribute the information through mass media should be emphasized. Therefore,
the information should be condensed for targeted audiences.
Press Releases
A series of one-page, camera-ready stories with pictures should be prepared,
each highlighting the strongest case studies according to topic areas. Articles
should be sent to newspapers-wire services and to trade and professional magazines
representing the primary and secondary audiences listed earlier. Because the
report shows transit's proactive response to issues that are very current, mass
distribution can enhance the public's perception of transit's value and role in
society.
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Access to Health Care: One article each on MDTA's Metropass Program
and MTA's Immediate Needs Transportation Program
Welfare-to-Work: One article each on SEPTA's Horsham Breeze and
PDRTA's 24-Hour Reverse Commute Service
Elderly Transportation: One article each on the City of Fremont's Travel
Training Program and OATS
Livable Communities: One article each on the Fruitvale BART Transit
Village and MTA's Blue Line TeleVillage; Numero Uno Market Shonners'
· . . ~. . -
Shuttle is also a candidate tor tins category, particularly for distribution
to magazines aimed at retailers
Internet sites
The same press releases could be installed on Internet sites aimed at the
primary and secondary audiences who deal with these various topic areas.
Brochures
Colorful, illustrated brochures succinctly presenting the key findings and
highlights of the case studies could be developed tor ctistr~bunon at conferences and
at meetings with elected officials and government staff. Because of their brevity,
these same brochures would be the most likely to be read by transit board members.
2. Traditional methods In addition, to these mass distribution mechanisms,
traditional methods should also be employed:
Executive Summary
Copies of the Executive Summary should be made available at conferences of
TRB, APTA, CTAA and other transportation organizations.
Presentation Materials
Slides and overhead materials on the key findings should be developed for
use in presentations not only at transportation meetings but also at meetings of
health care and social welfare professionals.
Methodology Guide
The Methodology Guide could be available to order as a manual separate
from the full report.
3. Products as outgrowths of the research Other dissemination mechanisms could
be developed, using the research as a foundation, but requiring additional resources
to develop:
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Videos
Agencies that participated in the case studies could be featured in a video,
with key players discussing how their practices were developed and illustrating how
they are being implemented today.
Roundlable
Managers of successful practices could be brought together to exchange ideas
with others wishing to emulate their services.
Training film
The roundiable described above could be filmed for wider distribution.
>
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CHAPTER REFERENCES
(103) Crain & Associates, Strategies to Assist Local Transportation Agencies in
Becoming Mobility Managers, Transportation Research Board, Report 21
(19981.
(104) Crain & Associates, Strategies to Assist Local Transportation Agencies in
Becoming Mobility Managers, Transportation Research Board, Report 21
(19981. The paragraph footnoted as (2) is quoted verbatim from the
Introduction.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
transportation organizations
