New Report: Bringing Innovation to Paratransit

In the first-ever analysis of New York City’s Access-A-Ride usage, the NYU Rudin Center for Transportation has identified key structural ways to improve paratransit service for people with disabilities in the five boroughs.

The report, “Bringing Innovation to Paratransit,” was released today with an accompanying interactive map. It is based on an original analysis of 6.3 million round trips taken in 2015 aboard Access-A-Ride—the shared-ride, door-to-door paratransit transportation service for New Yorkers whose disabilities prevent them from using a bus or subway for some or all of their trips.

Read the Executive SummaryDownload the Report

Key findings include:

Among key findings of “Bringing Innovation to Paratransit” concerning 2015:

• More than 6 million Access-A-Ride round trips were recorded in the five boroughs in that year.
• More wheelchair-bound passengers could have used subways but for an average of 53 outages per subway station elevator, or 14,092 outages in all.
• Access-A-Ride trips that started or ended near subway stations that did not offer station access consistent with the Americans with Disabilities Act cost a total of $258 million in 2015. Of these stations, 16 accounted for more than $2 million worth of Access-A-Ride pickups or drop-offs each.
• Nearly one-fourth of all Access-A-Ride trips began or ended at medical facilities in New York City, but only 37 percent of these 1.6 million trips were rides shared among users.
• Taxis were used for less than 5 percent of Access-A-Ride trips, and only one-third of those trips were shared.

This research was supported by The New York Community Trust.