Section 1: Overview

What are Transportation Vouchers?

Vouchers are a form of payment for transportation. A sponsoring agency (like a CIL) disperses vouchers to consumers, who use them to “pay” for transportation such as a ride from a friend or a bus fare. Vouchers are essentially an IOU, paid for by the sponsoring agency. Vouchers can take many forms, such as physical checks, a punch card, or even a card linked to an account, similar to a pre-paid debit card. Sometimes, there might not be a physical voucher, and voucher use is instead recorded digitally. Regardless of what the vouchers look like, all vouchers act as credits that consumers exchange for transportation services.

What is a Transportation Voucher Program?

The goal of a transportation voucher program is to provide flexible, actionable support rooted in the Independent Living philosophy of consumer control and choice. Voucher programs are designed to fill in the gaps in local transportation services.

The sponsoring agency of a voucher program is responsible for securing funds, building partnerships with transportation providers, and administering the tracking, billing, and payment process. In the voucher model, riders are allocated a voucher budget that they spend on their transportation needs. On behalf of the consumer, the sponsoring agency negotiates with public or private transportation providers to accept the vouchers as payment for rides. Sponsoring agency staff can also help riders find volunteer drivers.

No transportation voucher program is exactly the same. Some programs can serve a handful of riders in a small town while others serve dozens or hundreds of riders across multiple counties. Some programs only work with volunteer drivers, while others contract with every bus, taxi, or ride service in their area. Voucher programs can pre-pay or retroactively reimburse providers, use unique internal tools to track rider trips, or fund the program in different ways. What unifies these programs is their ability to give consumers choice and control in how they meet their transportation needs.

Getting Started

A CIL (or other sponsoring agency) can start a voucher program with only a few key ingredients. First, there are several key roles that must be identified and staffed. Second, there needs to be funding to pay for the vouchers. 5311 and 5310 grant funds from your state’s Department of Transportation (DOT) are often used for these types of programs. Finally, we must build a transportation network and find ways to track trips and process payments. When all of these elements are in place, we can begin enrolling consumers.

The Evidence

While voucher programs all work differently, the evidence is consistent – vouchers help meet the transportation needs of people with disabilities. Our 2025 factsheet, “I now have the freedom to do what I want, when I want, like anybody else”: The Impact, Creation, and Management of Transportation Voucher Programs, is a brief and approachable summary of how voucher programs work and how they help meet the transportation needs of CIL consumers.

For additional peer-reviewed studies, please refer to these publications:

• Bernier, B., & Seekins, T. (1999). Rural Transportation Voucher Program for People with Disabilities: Three Case Studies. Journal of Transportation and Statistics, 2(1), 61.

• Gonzales, L., Stombaugh, D., Seekins, T., & Kasnitz, D. (2006). Accessible rural transportation: An evaluation of the Traveler's Cheque Voucher Program. Community Development, 37(3), 106-115.

• Samuel, P. S., Lacey, K. K., Giertz, C., Hobden, K. L., & LeRoy, B. W. (2013). Benefits and quality of life outcomes from transportation voucher use by adults with disabilities. Journal of Policy and Practice in Intellectual Disabilities, 10(4), 277-288.