By Forum Staff
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority on Tuesday announced an expansion of the E-Hail pilot, tripling its participants to 3,600 paratransit customers beginning August 2023.
E-Hail is an on-demand service that offers Access-A-Ride customers the opportunity to book trips in real-time through existing taxi or for-hire vehicle service. The next phase of this program is set to run through February 2024, and could be extended through August 2024 after a six-month review. This expansion will be launched with a larger, more representative sample of Access-A-Ride customers with a $4 co-pay and has two programs: one with a greater per trip subsidy, the Distance option, and the other with a greater number of subsidized trips per month, the High- Volume option.
The distance-based program will provide up to 25 trips a month for up to $40 each and the high volume-based program will provide up to 40 trips a month for up to $25 each. Customers can travel further than their allocation of $25 or $40 and pay the balance of the trip cost.
The customer co-pay for each program is $4 and will be fully applied to the cost of the trip, allowing customers to take a $29 trip or $44 trip before paying any additional cost. E-Hail trips will be provided by Uber, Arro, Corporate Transportation Group and the Drivers Cooperative, with the potential for one or two more on-demand providers to be brought on soon.
Federal regulations allow for agencies to charge twice the fixed-route fare for paratransit services, which would mean a charge of up to $5.50 for Access-A-Ride’s traditional services of reserving a trip a day in advance. The MTA has elected to match the subway/bus fare of $2.75. E-Hail is a premium service, much like express buses, and this expansion carries a $4 co-pay which falls below the amount that other organizations charge for their standard paratransit service. The additional 2,400 participants joining the pilot will be selected at random from AAR’s customer base based on factors such as borough, disability, and age.
The parameters set for this second phase are based on the findings from Phase 1 and structured comparably to on-demand paratransit services from agencies across the country making this a more fiscally sustainable pilot. The trip and subsidy allocations will impact a minority of Phase 1 participants, with only 14 percent of participants having taken 40 or more trips per month on average in spring 2023 and 22 percent having taken 25 trips or more.
According to MTA officials, by establishing a set number of trips per month and MTA subsidy per trip, the agency is able to expand the benefits of E-Hail to 2,400 additional customers, with an adjusted budget of $17.6 million for the E-Hail pilot, compared to the estimated $16 million allocated in the first phase. Additionally, the majority of Phase 1 participants will continue to benefit from the on-demand service with little to no modification in their travel patterns. Phase 1 participants will be assigned to a program based on their travel patterns in the first phase.
Participants in the E-Hail pilot will continue to have access to the standard Access-A-Ride service, which has no limit on travel within the AAR service area at the current transit fare of $2.75. The on-demand service is intended to serve as an additional option to traditional paratransit service, enhancing flexibility and spontaneity for customers.
