4. Focus Group & Steering Committee Meetings

This study was directed with the help of a steering committee comprised of representatives of a wide variety of state transportation and human service agencies, regional planning councils, transportation service providers, and user groups. The steering committee met twice to provide direction to the study within the context of the guidelines prescribed by the North Dakota Department of Transportation in its contract with SURTC and to work with project team members to developed related recommendations.

Input from the steering committee was augmented by discussions that took place at regional focus group meetings that were held in each of North Dakota's eight planning regions. The focus group meetings were used to bring stakeholders together to discuss local transportation issues and to query them concerning transportation resources, coordination efforts, data collection, and unmet needs. These focus group meetings gave opportunity for suppliers and users to voice their concerns. This chapter will summarize discussions and findings related to these focus group and steering committee meetings. Minutes of each of these meetings are presented in Appendix G.

4.1 Steering Committee

As indicated at the beginning of this chapter, a steering committee was formed to help provide direction to the study effort, to evaluate its findings, and to help formulate recommendations. The committee's first meeting was held Nov. 20, 2003, in Bismarck. The meeting's 25 attendees included representatives of state agencies directly involved in providing transportation services, local and regional transit system operators, and agencies whose clients are in need of transportation services. Suggestions were developed concerning the need to expand the committee to include specific clientele groups such as those in public housing, transportation users, and economic development representatives.

SURTC project team members presented the committee with demographic information on the size and location of North Dakota's disabled population and the location of multi-county transit systems. The committee spent a considerable amount of time discussing existing coordination efforts, unmet transportation needs, and resources that might be shared to provide expanded and more efficient services.

The committee endorsed a study plan that would involve regional meetings with transportation stakeholders, assess local coordination efforts and the desire to expand on these efforts, and develop recommendations based on the findings of these meetings and a literature review of efforts in other parts of the country.

4.2 Focus Group Meetings

Between December 2003 and May 2004, SURTC convened nine regional meetings to bring together transportation stakeholders to discuss the status of transportation services in their respective regions. These meetings were held in each of North Dakota's eight planning regions. Two meetings were held in the Fargo region (Region 5) - one involving urban stakeholders and another involving their small urban and rural counterparts.

The meetings were well attended and generated discussions concerning transportation services that are available within each region, efforts that are underway to coordinate these services, and transportation needs that are unmet.

Meeting invitees included representatives of a wide variety of entities that are involved with local transportation - some as services providers, some as users, and some as facilitators. Typical meeting participants included operators and administrators representing fixed-route and paratransit bus services, school districts, city government, Head Start programs, nursing homes/long term and basic care facilities, taxi services, ambulance services, group homes for the developmentally disabled, state agencies (Job Services, Human Services, etc.), hospitals and clinics, and churches.

Four of North Dakota's eight planning regions have a regional hub community with a population in excess of 35,000. This group includes the cities of Bismarck, Fargo, Grand Forks, and Minot. Each of these communities has a local fixed-route bus system. With the exception of Grand Forks, each of these communities also serves as the hub for a multi-county paratransit service.

The other four regions have hub communities with populations ranging from about 7,000 to 16,000. Regional hubs in this group include Devils Lake, Dickinson, Jamestown, and Williston. None of these cities have a fixed-route bus system and only the Jamestown region (Region 6) has a comprehensive multi-county paratransit service. A smaller multi-county system is in place in the Dickinson region (Region 8). Despite the lack of multi-county paratransit systems in some of these regions, each regional center does serve as the hub of its respective region and has transportation services and facilities which include local paratransit services, taxi service, commercial air service, and intercity ground transportation via bus and/or rail.

In addition to serving as regional transportation hubs, major cities in each region are also the location for regional offices of state agencies such as the Department of Transportation, Human Services, Job Services, Vocational Rehabilitation, etc. The lone exception is that the Department of Transportation's regional office in Region 6 is in Valley City, not Jamestown. All eight regional centers also serve as their region's main shopping and medical center.

As discussed in Chapter 3, transportation-related information on each region was compiled to develop a fuller inventory of the transportation systems and services that are in place in each region. The focus group meetings were used to bring stakeholders together to discuss local transportation issues and to query them concerning their transportation resources, coordination efforts, data collection, and unmet needs.

Approximately 100 stakeholders participated in the nine regional meetings. Each meeting included presentations by each participant concerning their role in local transportation. In virtually all cases, this information exchange was educational for everyone and emphasized the fact that many local stakeholders were not well informed on the serviced provided by various entities or of the unmet transportation needs of area residents. Specific comments from meeting participants are presented in the meeting minutes presented in Appendix G.

At the conclusion of each focus group meeting, participants were asked to complete a transportation coordination survey and a meeting evaluation. The survey includes 10 questions that focused on information that is currently available on local transportation services and ongoing coordination efforts and the need for greater coordination. The following paragraphs discuss participant responses to each of the survey questions and their input concerning the value of the meeting. Please refer to appendix H for survey questionnaire and cumulative response.

Coordination Framework

Is there a community framework in place that embraces efforts to coordinate transportation among local government agencies? Nearly 92 percent of respondents indicated that work needs to begin in this area or that additional attention needs to be paid to developing a framework for coordinating local transportation services.

Interest in Coordination

Is there growing interest in and/or momentum toward working on coordinating transportation services in the community? The responses to this question were nearly identical to the previous question, with more than 92 percent of all respondents indicating that momentum toward coordinating local transportation services either needs to begin or it needs additional attention.

Inventory of Local Resources and Services

Is there an inventory of community transportation resources (i.e. buses, drivers, and volunteers) and programs that support and fund transportation? Nearly 93 percent of respondents said that work needs to begin or that more needs to be done to develop a local inventory of available transportation resources and services.

Needs Documentation

Are the specific transportation needs of various target populations well documented? Only 15 percent of respondents felt that transportation needs of local residents are well documented. The remaining 85 percent indicated that related work either needs to begin or that the effort requires additional attention.

Participation in Needs Assessment

Have transportation users and other stakeholders participated in community-transportation assessment processes? Approximately 88 percent of the respondents said that more needs to be done concerning to involve local transportation users and other stakeholders in a local needs-assessment process.

Data Collection

Is clear data systematically gathered on core performance issues such as cost per trip, ridership, and on-time performance? Approximately 85 percent of respondents felt that more needs to be done to enhance the collection of reliable performance indicators related to local transportation services.

Available Data Concerning Benefits of Coordination

Is there any data being collected on possible benefits of coordinated transportation? Nearly 97 percent of respondents indicated that more needs to be done to collect data concerning the possible benefits of a more coordinated approach to providing transportation services in their respective regions. Only three respondents thought that current efforts were adequate.

Seamless Payment System

Is there any seamless payment system that supports user-friendly services and promotes customer choice of the most cost-effective service? Nearly 92 percent of all respondents felt that work needs to begin or that more needs to be done to develop seamless payment systems in support of user-friendly services.

Support Services

Are support services coordinated to lower cost and ease management burdens for coordinated transportation? (i.e. group purchasing, Medicaid, Head Start, Meal on Wheels, Vocational Rehabilitation, employment rides, etc). More than 91 percent of respondents said that it would be beneficial if more work was done to develop support services that would be available to providers to help them reduce operating costs.

Vision of Coordination

What is your vision of a coordinated transportation system in your area? Meeting participants took the opportunity to provide 76 narrative comments concerning their vision concerning coordinated transportation services in their respective regions. Reoccurring themes included:

• Better coordination between DOT and Human Services transportation systems.
• Single source of information for local transportation users.
• Expanded hours of service.
• Services that are available to general public.
• Expand availability of services in rural areas.
• Provide access from rural areas into regional centers.
• Provide access to commercial transportation providers.
• Connect regional systems to provide state-wide service.
• System needs to be efficient and affordable.

As indicated earlier, meeting participants were also asked to complete a meeting evaluation survey at the end of the meeting. Attendees were asked, among other things, if the meeting was valuable, if increased coordination would be a valuable endeavor, if they would be willing to play an active role in advancing a local coordination effort, and if their agency has clients who have missed appointments due to a lack of transportation services. Participant responses are summarized below:

Value

Of the 107 that responded to this question, 60 percent indicated it was an excellent meeting for them personally. Less than 2 percent ranked the meeting as fair.

Increased Coordination

Of the 107 who responded, more than 78 percent thought increasing coordination would be a valuable endeavor, while less than 1 percent thought it was not a worthwhile endeavor.

Participation

Not only did the participants think coordination was a worthwhile endeavor, they also where willing to back that up. An overwhelming 89 percent said they would be willing to play an active role in advancing coordination.

Missed Appointments

Not all responded to the inquiry on missed appointments because of transportation issues. However, 62 percent of those who did respond indicated their clients have missed appointments because of transportation issues.

In summary, it appears that the more than 100 individuals who participated in these focus group meetings deemed the meetings very worthwhile and felt that additional work needs to be done to coordinate transportation services within their respective regions.

4.3 Second Steering Committee Meeting

With this direction, the focus group meetings discussed earlier were arranged and held. After these meetings were held and related information was compiled, the steering committee reconvened to review the information and to provide further input for study recommendations. This meeting was held on June 30, 2004, in Bismarck. The minutes of this meeting are presented in Appendix G. As these minutes indicate, the meeting was well attended by representatives of key state agencies, local and regional transit operators, and user group representatives.

The Committee spent several hours reviewing information that was compiled on transportation services in each of North Dakota's eight regions. This information, as presented in Chapter 3, was generated via direct contacts with various state and local agencies and through the focus group meetings discussed earlier.

Following this review and related discussions, meeting participants were asked to complete a survey regarding the most desirable/feasible approaches to pursuing expanded coordination efforts in North Dakota. Respondents were asked to rank their opinion on each coordination option from 1 = Strongly Disagree to 7 = Strongly Agree. The 17 participants' responses are summarized in the Table 4.1; the highest ranked preference to each option is bolded. Each coordination option is more fully discussed in the following paragraphs.

Table 4.1 Steering Committee Response to Coordination Options

Greater Local Coordination

Encourage greater coordination at local level without regional coordination. As indicated, most of the meeting's attendees disagreed with this approach to coordination. The consensus was that coordination beyond the local level was necessary.

Regional Ride-Sharing / Brokering

Establish regional ride-matching program and brokerage via Internet-based information sharing. Attendees were relatively neutral concerning this approach to encouraging increased coordination and efficiency.

Require Coordination

Require that all state-funded transit providers be part of regional coordination organization for management and funding purposes (including fixed route systems).

None of the respondents disagreed with a "require coordination" approach to regional coordination. Twelve of 17 respondents rated this approach towards the "Strongly Agree" end of the rating spectrum.

Regional Coordinators

Establish and fund eight state coordinators, one in each region. Use separate approaches for the four urban and four rural regions. As was the case with "require coordination" as queried in the previous question, meeting participants endorsed the concept of having regional transportation coordinators in each region to manage and facilitate coordination efforts within that region.

Regional Coordinators - Require Involvement

The steering committee did not fully agree with any presented option and together developed this fifth option. Establish and fund 8 regional coordinators. Require involvement of all publicly supported transportation services. Make available to all nonpublic transit providers. Regional coordinators hired at regional level using state guidelines. Provide for a state level board. This option is actually a composite of the two previous options. It would put regional coordinators in place and require publicly supported transportation services to be a part of the resulting system. Other nonpublic systems would be invited to participate. The entire effort would be overseen by a state board, presumably comprised of representatives of agencies that are directly involved with the provision of transportation services and related user group representatives. The group overwhelmingly endorsed this approach with no one being opposed and 15 of 17 respondents saying they "Strongly Agree" with the proposal.

In summary, both the individuals who participated in regional focus group meetings and members of the steering committee agree that further efforts to coordinate local and regional transportation services and related system operations are warranted. This mandate serves as the basis for the options and recommendations that are presented in the following chapter.