Foursquare ITP was very flexible and responsive to our needs. Their methodology for analyzing system-wide changes to our bus network was creative and sound.
- Elliott Doza, Project Manager - Service Planning, Central Ohio Transit Authority
The Central Ohio Transit Authority (COTA) leveraged Foursquare ITP’s extensive Title VI and system redesign experience to complete a robust series of analyses of the agency’s planned Transit System Redesign (TSR) in compliance with Federal Transit Administration (FTA) requirements of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination in the provision of federally funded programs on the basis of race, color, and national origin. The TSR, a full system redesign of all of COTA’s routes, aims to improve service for current riders, meet the demand of future riders, and continue to increase the appeal of the Columbus region to potential residents, employers, and visitors. The vast majority of the TSR is scheduled for full-scale implementation in May 2017.
Given the scale of the changes across the entire COTA system, a traditional line-by-line service equity analysis would have been limited in its ability to understand the impact on the changes in service in a given geographic area. As a result, Foursquare ITP developed a new, system-wide methodology for service equity that analyzed changes in the availability of service (whether service was introduced or discontinued), span of service, and frequency to determine were changes in the level of service provided would cause a potential negative impact (assessed using locally developed Title VI thresholds) to minority or low-income populations. Individual areas where potential negative impacts were identified were addressed, and COTA subsequently modified service plans in response to several of the identified areas. In addition to the service equity analysis, Foursquare ITP also completed a pre-run of two recquired Title VI Program elements, the service area profile and transit service monitorin, under the new TSR system to aid their understaning of the equity impacts of the new system.