The ITCTC is seeking proposals from the Public for 2013 FTA JARC and New Freedom Projects due by May 31, 2012. We anticipate a combined amount of $100,000 in funding in 2012 to be used in 2013. Proposals should be sent to Fernando deAragon, Exec. Dir., Ithaca-Tompkins County Transportation Council, by 4 pm on that date. For Proposal Forms and more information go here. Proposed Revisions to Coordinated Plan's Goals, Objectives and Selection Criteria are due on May 31, 2012 to ITCTC. Concurrent with JARC & New Freedom proposals, the ITCTC is accepting proposed revisions to the Coordinated Plan Goals. Objectives and Project Selection Criteria by May 31, 2012. Submissions of revised language to the ITCTC before the May 16 Coordinated Plan meeting is encouraged. Add Comment Triennial Review Parallel Universe 05/04/2012
I have not written a new post in a while because I was pre-occupied with our Federal Transit Administration (FTA) Triennial Review which is wrapping up after the site visit on April 19-20, 2012. What is a Triennial Review? Every three years, FTA Region II reviews how well its grant recipients complies with Federal requirements in 24 areas. The review is thorough. There is much effort required to put together the written submission (Mar 1), have a technical assistance meeting with the reviewer (March 12) and complete the site visit (April 19-20). The review is a valuable tool for realigning local practices and procedures with Federal requirements. In our case, Tompkins County is the local FTA grant recipient. Tompkins Consolidated Area Transit, Inc. is the largest subrecipient. Other subrecipients include all of the agencies who receive FTA JARC and New Freedom funding through the Coordinated Planing process. We need to build an effective local partnership to successfully implement Federal requirements. Our 2012 Triennial Review looks to be the best one yet. I'll report back when the results are official. P.S. May 5, 2012 FTA confirmed today that Tompkins County/TCAT complied with all 24 Fedreal requirements. So, we got a perfect score, 24 for 24. This is the first time in 6 Triennial Reviews. Mobility Management by Train 05/04/2012
 On March 16, 2012, I went to Albany to present at the NYSCAA - New York State Community Action Association Symposium on Poverty and Economic Security. I'm was on a panel with Bill Telovsky and John Reel of NYSDOT and Carrie Whitwood of the Southern Tier Rural Health Network to discuss "Rural Mobility: Overview and Innovations". I talked about mobility management in Tompkins County. I took Amtrak from Syracuse to Albany. The Amtrak Connect Wifi reception was pretty good. Further, you can track the train's progress enroute: 
Below is my presentation. I'll write my notes in later. 
Mobility 3:45 Ithaca, NY Mobility Management 03/29/2012
In response to the Partnership for Mobility Management's solicitation for short (under 5 minutes) videos on mobility management, services and communities, I put together "Mobility 3:45". It's on YouTube. I would like to hear your comments. Thanks. http://youtu.be/PewMT-9O0iQ  The True Cost of Commuting - A Poster 03/14/2012
This interesting poster, by StreamlineRefinance.net, presents information about the true cost of commuting. The argument, greatly simplified, is every mile of commuting by car is worth $15,900 of the price of a home. Interested in the case? See the poster.  Click image to see Poster. The poster is an example of displaying moderately complex concepts visually. We have this issue in mobility management and need to use all tools to reach people. What do you think? Bike-Share Meeting in Washington DC and more 02/29/2012
Bike Sharing has quickly emerged as a cost‐effective and sustainable strategy to bolster public transit usage and get more Americans biking in our cities and towns. Join the conversation as city officials, transit operators, researchers, and leading experts on bike sharing gather to discuss best practices and lessons learned for bike share systems in the United States. When: March 22-23. The workshop will include one full day of activities on Thursday, March 22nd and a half day of activities on Friday, March 23rd, ending at 3:30. Where: Hyatt Capitol, 400 New Jersey Avenue Northwest, Washington, DC 20001 Bike Share Workshop Agenda (March 22-23, Washington D.C.) Register for the Bike Share Workshop Workshop coordinated by National Association of City Transportation Officials, Federal Transit Administration, Federal Highway Administration, American Public Transportation Association, League of American Bicyclists, National Center for Transit Research, and National Bus Rapid Transit Institute 
Click image to go to website
Preface - The following discussion is taking place now on the LinkedIn Group -Partnership for Mobility Management. Join the Partnership to join the group. (Membership is free.) Join the group to be connected. Dwight Mengel  Ride-sharing Website Platforms: Is there a best choice? Is there a clear front-runner in the world of ride-share matching websites? Our area, Binghamton NY, uses Broome-Tioga Greenride, but there is no way as of yet of integrating with users of other matching websites, such as Zimride in nearby Tompkins County. 511NY Rideshare is beginning to pilot their program upstate in Elmira and Steuben County, as of now it primarily serves the downstate area. This system could potentially connect users nationwide, which would increase it usefulness. Thoughts? BroomeTioga GreenRide broometioga.greenride.com Hi Ella, You pose a timely question. On Friday (2/17) we were discussing it in a Tompkins Rideshare Consortium meeting. Our Zimride portal has nearly 10,000 users, the great majority are college students from three schools – Cornell Univ., Ithaca College & TC3 (community college). Yes, there are quite a few rideshare services out there. In many respects, rideshare is the great white whale of mobility management. The potential market and benefits are so great, we exert every effort to harpoon it, only for rideshare to elude our grasp once again. (Ok, so I’m writing this in a book store café.) In the five counties you mention, rideshare has a 10-12% modal split for commuting to work. That is the baseline to assess if rideshare programs are making progress. In the late 1970’s, ridesharing was up to 20+% modal split, without computer matches & iphones. So, why, other than students, is ridesharing generally unable to steadily gain mainstream acceptance? Clearly, people can save much money using car & van pools. With gas prices closing in on $4 (in Upstate NY), the saving money argument should be compelling & effective. But, by itself, it is not. (There are other LinkedIn groups to pose your question to: Real-Time Ridesharing and Re-Inventing Carpool Interest Group. Try them.) We looked at what people want to use ridesharing for - commuting to work, one time trips (between cities), going to events (festivals, sports), taking children to and from school (schoolpool), ridesharing within a person's individual network, linking rideshare with carshare to enable students to serve as volunteer drivers, and organizing shared ride taxi groups to get a reduced group price. Don't expect one service to do it all. I think any rideshare service needs to address three facets of decision-making – security, comfort and lastly, cost-savings. If you omit the first two, the pitch fails. Perception is reality. Security is really, really important. People need reassurance that they are not sharing rides with “strangers”, but acquaintances, at a minimum. Beyond personal security, people need reliable service. Being stranded, waiting for a driver, at a dark storefront, in the rain, is also a security issue. Comfort is also important. Cars are personal spaces and are often the extensions of the personality of the driver. People need to be comfortable with each other. Rideshare etiquette enters in here. Last, there’s money. Improving the money transfer between driver and riders is very useful. So, let me get back to your original question. Yes, there are multiple ridesharing services. They are usually not restricted by location. (You could use the Zimride/Tompkins to arrange rides anywhere in the US.) So, look at a rideshare program's ability to improve their service features and marketing. Is a service constantly evolving to enable individuals to address their security, comfort and money issues? It’s too soon to answer “What is the best service?” Competition is good. I'm skeptical of the adaptability of one-size-fits-all approach of some rideshare platforms. But, they are better than nothing in the meantime. As mobility managers, we need to look out for tools to improve ridesharing. Therefore, I’m interested in Avego’s “Shout” app for the iPhone. It provides vehicle & rider locations to facilitate pickups. Shout is a free app from iTunes store. It’s a tool any carpool could use. There is much work before we land this whale. Dwight Mengel Exploring Innovation Management 02/13/2012
Managing Group Innovation Successful mobility management uses skilled collaboration plus innovation. Managing innovation is not necessarily our strong suit. Have we moved passed the suggestion box? Are our customers, public, employees and stakeholders effectively engaged in planning and service development? I wanted to take a step back and see how innovation may be cultivated and managed in the private sector. I found a lot of abstract corporate speak I do not understand. But I also found a Swedish website: innovationmanagement.se and LinkedIn Group: Innovation Management, which includes archived webinars. It's thought-provoking, so I want to share it with you. This webinar - "Next Generation Innovation" is 39 minutes long. I don't want to spoil anything so I'll stop here. I am very interested in your comments. PS, I think this is a good example of a good enough quality webinar that the mobility management community could produce. So I like its technical merit. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Innovation Management - Creating value with innovation management. innovationmanagement.se Next Generation Innovation – What does it Mean to Me as a Practitioner? In this recorded IM Channel One Webcast David Burns talks about some of the challenges connected with how to better leverage Open Innovation in your organization. For example how processes and structures can be put in place to manage, rank, decide on, track and archive hundreds or thousands of ideas and challenges. On Saturday, Jan 21, 2012, I attended Transportation Camp, DC hosted by Open Plans.org. Transportation Camp is an unconference, that is, the program is created and given by participants. It's a free marketplace of ideas. There were 40 concurrent sessions over four 1-hour sessions. I participated in three sessions - "Car-share, Rideshare, Vanpool for Low Income Neighborhoods - a brainstorm", "Mapbox: Fast Beautiful Open Source Maps - a workshop", "Blogs & Transit Advocacy - a discussion" and hosted a session "The Business of Selling Mobility Solutions to Customers- a discussion". Camp is fully engaging. Time is short and you to make the best of it. People come to participate and to network. Camp was in the School Wthout Walls High School. We ate in the cafteria and used ten classrooms & meeting spaces. We wrote out our own name tags. No posh hotel conference centers, no podiums and few powerpoints. Just casual (not even business casual) and a lot of Gen X & Y energy. The price was right too - $0, and 8 hours of time. See a Zoomable HD image of the Camp Program here. Here are more "postcards from camp". Sheryl Gross-Glaser - Partership for Mobility Management "What is an unconference like, what can it accomplish and what happens when people from transit, planning agencies, and the tech world, with plenty of academics mixed in, get together for conversation and without pre-planned sessions?" More at the Express Stop. Brian Ferris - Transit TheTransitWire.com I was writing a piece about Transportation Camp DC, when I saw a notice in NTPTA Tuesday's Transit News about SEPTA's real time System Status: "SEPTA is proud to launch a new service: System Status. The service offers a complete view of the SEPTA system on a single page, updated every 10 seconds. In one neat snapshot, you can see the status of all bus and trolley routes and rail lines. View the service here >>> " When you go to the site you'll find a simple table displaying the status of their bus and rail routes. Further, there is a trip planner and quick links to navigate between schedules, maps, fares and system status pages. As an infrequent visitor to Philadelphia, I could use this page ( and quicklinks) to plan my trips. I give SEPTA a big thumbs up for this simple and straightforward presentation. How can this approach be used by other transit systems - large and small? Well, the quicklinks are convenient. No need to look through dropdown menus to find essential customer information. The status page answers many questions customers would have on a daily basis. It is not a substitute for real time vehicle location information, but it is a helpful, incremental improvement.  | AuthorDwight Mengel works in the Tompkins County Department of Social Services as its Chief Transportation Planner.  ArchivesMay 2012 CategoriesAll | ||
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