Section 2: Start-Up

Eligibility

Deciding who will be eligible to use vouchers for their transportation needs is one of the first issues to address in your program policies and procedures. Many people living in rural communities lack adequate transportation. This can include people with disabilities, senior citizens, and people with low incomes. However, the reality is that your voucher program may not be able to serve everyone in your community. Fortunately, CILs are well-positioned to balance the needs of consumers with program capacity. Common issues that CILs may want to consider when determining eligibility include:

• A person’s disability

• A person’s transportation needs

• Where a person lives

• Age

• Income

Trip Purpose

Depending on the funding source and community input, there may be a need to address the issue of allowable trip purposes, destinations, or total distance allowed. For example, are longer trips out of the county or state permitted? While long trips may be more expensive, long trips out of the county to regional medical or training centers may be one of the most effective uses of a voucher program. In some rural communities, short trips within town are available, but transportation options to more distant sites may not be available. Likewise, many funding sources may want to dictate the kinds of rides they are willing or legally permitted to fund (i.e., employment, medical, and school are OK, but religious or social travel are not).

Mileage Allowances

Determining how many miles or trips you can reasonably allow per consumer is another important consideration. If you want to serve as many consumers as possible, you may have to set very limited mileage allowances. Or you may want to provide as much mileage as consumers need, and thus need to limit the number of consumers enrolled in your program. Other issues you may want to consider include:

• Should you use a waiting list if you have consumers who want to enroll but you cannot currently serve?

• Should you set a max amount of time or mileage that a consumer can use before you serve others?

• Should you require participating consumers to pay a small copay into the program to stretch voucher funds as much as possible?

Types of Providers/Drivers

Some transportation services can be expensive, such as taxicabs or rideshare companies (e.g., Uber). Using high-cost providers will reduce the number of consumers you can serve and the number of rides your funds can pay for. If you decide to include these types of providers in your voucher program, you may want to restrict how consumers use them. For example, maybe consumers are only supposed to use them when they have no other options or if they have a time-sensitive travel need.

Another issue to address is who can be reimbursed for mileage as a driver. For example, some of your consumers may be able to drive themselves but lack gas money. Your CIL may decide that this is an appropriate use of vouchers with some additional restrictions, such as limiting the types of eligible uses to work-related trips or for healthcare appointments. In general, you should establish policies regarding who can serve as a volunteer driver and who is permitted to be reimbursed for mileage. 

Handling Inappropriate Uses

People make mistakes. It's helpful to have policies and guidelines for managing mistakes and handling inappropriate uses of vouchers. Sometimes a consumer may exceed their mileage allowance or use a voucher for a type of trip that isn’t permitted. These types of mistakes can be minimized by informing providers about any limitations on distance or trip purpose. However, it's important that the provider is still paid, even if your funding source prohibits this type of use. As such, it's a good idea to have a backup mechanism in place to ensure mileage reimbursement. Other questions to consider include:

• What types of corrective actions should you take, if any?

• Should you implement a warning policy for violations?

• How will you maintain good relationships with providers when mistakes happen?

Calculating Reimbursements

Some providers may have to travel some distance to pick up a rider. For example, a volunteer driver may have to travel across town to pick someone up. The sponsoring agency should determine if the distance driven to reach a rider counts toward the total mileage reimbursement or not.

Making Payments

You will need to establish a payment schedule to reimburse providers. Typically, issuing payments once every two weeks is a good compromise between rapid reimbursement and operational efficiency. Riders should inform the drivers about such policies.

Being Flexible

Once written policies are established, there will be cases in which special circumstances and common sense force deviation from the rules. There should be a simple mechanism to handle special cases when they arise.