Ride Alliance Metro Area Project, Denver, CO, 2020

The Denver Regional Council of Governments/Denver Area Agency on Aging, Via Mobility Services have partnered to create the Denver Metro Area project also known as Ride Alliance. This project, designed for older adults, veterans and people with mobility challenges, strives to better coordinate demand-response transportation (DRT) trips across multiple service providers and scheduling software platforms through a newly generated software called the Trip Exchange. The software functions as a central hub for service providers such as Mobility DR for some Regional Transportation District (RTD) services, Routematch for RTD’s Access-a-Ride, City and County of Broomfield, Seniors’ Resource Center, and Via that use different dispatching software and platforms for DRT trips. Users register an account with Ride Alliance either online or over the phone, provide consent to share your information with the Ride Alliance partners, and can then proceed to request a ride. When a trip is requested, the initial provider has the ability to accept or reject the trip based on variables such as their availability or service hours. If the trip is rejected, the trip will post to the Trip Exchange, allowing another provider to pick up the rejected trip enabling a better user experience for the rider and greater trip efficiency as the provider is able to fill empty seats. This coordination works through application programming interfaces (API) that connect the “endpoint” systems to the central hub. The main sources of funding have come from a Mobility Services for All Americans grant and two Veterans Transportation and Community Living Initiative grants.