Originally published October 28, 2021. Updated November 4, 2024.
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Over the past few years, commingling — the operation of ADA paratransit service in conjunction with non-ADA demand response — has proven itself a powerful strategy for boosting efficiency while offering a better rider experience. As success stories proliferate, agencies come to us with some regularity to ask, “is commingling right for us?”
But that’s actually not the right question. Instead, we encourage agencies to ask “what level of commingling is right for us”? There are actually 4 distinct commingled service models. We can advise on which of the following models (or phasing of several models) make the most sense, depending on your goals and resources:
- A unified technology platform, empowering the same schedulers and dispatchers to manage both services.
- A shared fleet, with the vehicles flexing between paratransit and microtransit based on demand.
- Commingled driver shifts, so that the same drivers carry paratransit and microtransit passengers within a given shift.
- Commingled trips, with passengers from both paratransit and microtransit services onboard a vehicle at the same time.
Read on to learn more about each of these operational modes, as well as the benefits. To learn more about Via’s paratransit product, visit our Solutions page.
A unified technology platform.
Using the same software for paratransit and microtransit is a simple but powerful step toward improving network-wide efficiency and maximizing resources. Reservationists and dispatchers can be shared between services, reducing training time and empowering agents to book and dispatch across multiple services simultaneously. A staff trained on one unified system is also more resilient to absences and disruptions. Running both services on the same back-end algorithms increases the overall number of vehicles on the platform, which typically results in more attractive pricing.
Perhaps most importantly, offering accessible microtransit alongside paratransit — within the same app, or from the same call center — can nudge paratransit-eligible riders to choose a microtransit trip, which is typically a lower cost for agencies to serve. In Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where microtransit and paratransit run on the same software, ~16% of trips taken by paratransit-eligible riders in 2024 were served on microtransit.
Commingled fleets.
Some agencies choose to go a step further than a unified tech platform, and also have their paratransit and demand-response services share the same fleet of vehicles. While an individual vehicle will only operate as paratransit or demand-response during a given driver shift, the proportion of vehicles assigned to paratransit and microtransit can change depending on demand.
To see this in action we can look at Green Bay, Wisconsin, where Green Bay Metro relaunched its paratransit service with Via technology in March of 2020, and soon faced a new challenge in the form of declining fixed route ridership as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
So, in August 2020, the agency decided to leverage its available paratransit vehicles to launch cost-effective microtransit in place of its hardest hit bus routes. Reservationists, support agents, drivers, and mechanics move freely between the services and coordinate with each other through a single platform, reducing overhead for each service. The commingled fleet now delivers paratransit trips 98% on-time — a 7% improvement — and utilization has returned to pre-pandemic levels. Four years later, the service still has 0 missed paratransit trips.
Commingled shifts.
In this commingling scenario, drivers serve both paratransit and microtransit rides during the same shift, though paratransit and microtransit riders are not on board the vehicle at the same time. The approach optimizes the fleet and aggregates riders by slotting route-compatible on-demand trips in between pre-scheduled paratransit trips.
In Summit County, Utah, High Valley Transit (HVT) used this model when launching a brand new transit agency to replace the fixed route and paratransit services previously provided by Park City Transit. By adding a microtransit service that commingled shifts with paratransit, HVT fills system gaps while increasing utilization across the network. In fact, within three months of its May 2021 launch, ridership of the combined service rose to three times even the pre-COVID paratransit ridership and utilization improved by more than 150%.
Successful commingling of shifts or trips requires a driver app that communicates whether an upcoming pickup is a paratransit or microtransit rider, and whether the rider has any special needs or requires boarding assistance.
Commingled trips.
Commingling can achieve the greatest efficiency gains where paratransit and general population riders travel in the same vehicle, at the same time. It’s a strategy deployed by Durham Region Transit (DRT) in Ontario, Canada, as part of a comprehensive network redesign. Fixed-route buses operate in denser areas, while microtransit fills the gaps both downtown and in the more rural parts of the zone.
This microtransit layer is commingled with DRT’s paratransit service, for a combined fleet size of 40 vehicles — the largest commingled service in Canada. And to make the most of this fleet, DRT opted to enable commingling at the trip level, leading to 48% of trips having riders from both the microtransit and paratransit services onboard.
Benefits of commingling.
Commingling is a powerhouse strategy for improving paratransit operations. Its chief benefits, as illustrated in the examples above, are improving service experience for riders — with higher on-time performance and same-day service — and lowering costs through improved vehicle productivity. Let’s review how each of these benefits can play out:
Improved service experience
- More booking flexibility with same-day, on-demand trips.
- Reduced perception and/or stigma of “separate” service with paratransit and microtransit operating under the same brand.
- Opportunity for travel training in a familiar, low-stress environment.
Lowered cost-per-trip
- Paratransit riders discover and take lower-cost, on-demand trips in place of more expensive, traditional paratransit.
- Increasing overall vehicle utilization by slotting on-demand microtransit trips into available space on paratransit vehicles.
- Combining support resources — customer support agents, reservationists, IT resources — for both services within combined management software.
Though a powerful strategy, commingling isn’t one-size-fits-all. If you’re ready to take the next step in considering if commingling is right for your service, download our in-depth guide to integrating microtransit and paratransit here, or reach out to us directly below. We’re here to help.
