ArcLogistics Saves Limited Resources of Paratransit Agency

San Diego Regional Center, San Diego, California

The American Red Cross eliminated its transportation services in San Diego, California, and the San Diego Regional Center (SDRC) was suddenly without buses for half of its clients. "Fifty percent of our capacity was eliminated, and I was very concerned about finding a solution for this problem." says Bernard Arroyo, transportation coordinator, SDRC.

SDRC is one of 21 regional centers in California for persons with developmental disabilities. Since its creation in 1969, SDRC has been serving people living within the geographic boundaries of San Diego and Imperial Counties.

"We had to make do with the limited resources in the community," adds Arroyo, "I knew I would not be able to find one contractor to replace the 47 bus routes the Red Cross operated, but I also thought there was some operational efficiency to be gained if we reevaluated the system."

The center creates the supplementary transportation, or paratransit, routes to avoid overlap by different contractors at the same pickup locations and to better ensure that our consumers are receiving access to programs within their community.

The center used grid coordinates from a popular series of mapbooks to track the location of each pickup and drop-off point. However, those maps were structured in such a way that one location may have two different coordinates as pages overlap. As the need for a more effective routing strategy became apparent, the center received a grant from the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) and implemented ArcLogistics.

"When the Red Cross gave notice, we used ArcLogistics to create the new routes," says Arroyo. "We discovered that if we created the new routes, we could then take that information to the contractor and it could acquire the buses that we would need. We increased our productivity by at least 20 percent. Before implementing our new system, we were operating at 4.4 trips per hour, and now we are operating at 5.8 trips per hour."