49 CFR Parts 37 and 38 -- Transportation for Individuals With Disabilities at Intercity, Commuter, and High Speed Passenger Railroad Station Platforms; Miscellaneous Amendments, Preamble

NPRM

In the preamble to the NPRM, the Department discussed how complementary paratransit systems should count trip denials and missed trips. This is an important issue because the rate of trip denials can affect determinations by the Department and, in some cases, the courts about whether a paratransit operator is complying with its obligations under the Department's paratransit service criteria. Too many denials can result in a finding that the operator either has a capacity constraint or is otherwise falling short of its obligation to provide timely service to eligible passengers.

In many cases, there is no difficulty in determining how to count trip denials. If a passenger asks for a one-way trip from Point A to Point B and is told that a ride is unavailable, or the vehicle does not show up, then one trip has been denied or missed. (A denied trip is one the provider declines to schedule for an eligible rider. A missed trip is one that the provider scheduled for which the vehicle never arrives, or arrives outside of the pickup window, and the passenger does not take the trip.) In the case of requests for round trips or multi-leg trips, the situation is less straightforward. Suppose a passenger asks for a round trip from Point A to Point B and back to Point A, or asks for a trip from Point A to Point B to Point C, with a return to Point A. The first leg of the trip is denied or missed, with the result that the passenger never is able to get to Point B. Clearly, at least one trip—from Point A to Point B—has been denied or missed. In addition, the opportunity to make the subsequent trips in the itinerary has also been lost. In this case, the Department suggested in the NPRM, the trips from Point B back to Point A, or from Point B to Point C and then back to Point A, should also be tallied as denied trips, because the action of the paratransit operator in denying or missing the first trip cost the passenger the chance to take those trips.