If you're reading this newsletter, you likely have an appreciation for the benefits of Senior Centers. They help people maintain independence and reduce social isolation. Centers promote physical and mental well-being, arrange access to social and health services, and often provide nutritious meals. Once participants get to the Center, their lives have the opportunity to be improved.
Getting to the Center can sometimes be the biggest barrier to achieving that improvement. As we age, it can become more difficult to drive safely due to vision or mobility issues. That problem can be solved with a transportation system provided by the Center or community. Transportation is also critical for getting to medical appointments, shopping for groceries, or visiting loved ones.
In this issue of Fun Facts, we're going to provide statistics from across the Network related to transportation, plus give you a sneak peek at changes coming to MySeniorCenter to help your efforts.
Welcome to...Fun Facts
On The Road Again
Enjoy!
COVID-related shutdowns had a big impact on Senior Center participation for a few years. Program attendance didn't reach 2019 levels until mid-2023. Transportation numbers had a similar drop off in those years as well. In 2024, the total number of rides provided by Centers across the Network exceeded 2M, far surpassing the total in 2019. The number of new riders skyrocketed as well. With both of those metrics up, we wanted to look at the number of rides per person.
Getting more people to more places, faster. That's the goal of any transportation service. Some communities are fortunate enough to have funding for vehicles and drivers, but other places need to rely on volunteers using their own cars to get people to medical appoinments. Oftentimes, it's a combination of funded vehicles AND volunteers. Across the Network, there is a wide variety of approaches to filling the transportation gap. Some averages:
- 4.12 vehicles
- 9 volunteer drivers
- 3 paid drivers
- 16% of rides were fee-based
- Average fee was $11
- ~50% of fee-based rides were Medical
In most years, especially before 2019, the portion of rides that involved bringing someone to the Center was roughly 35%. In 2024, that dropped to 23%, and is similar so far this year (25%). While the percentages of Medical and Errands/Shopping rides have stayed fairly level, there have been increases in rides to both Adult/Social Day and Job/Employment. The graph below shows rides in each category from 2019 - 2024.
The average age of all riders is 76.63, which is slightly older than the average Center participant. Here's a more detailed look at the ages of all riders:
Using data from the the last 10 years, we see some behavioral differences between people who utilize the Center's transportation options to get to the Center (riders) and those who don't (non-riders).
Transportation is a critical, but complicated, component to support aging in place. Centers need to juggle dispatch, find volunteers, create driver routing and reporting in a way that is easy to use and familiar to Senior Center staff. The current MySeniorCenter RIDES module does the basics, but relies on manual routing and requires the dispatch person to know the limits of each vehicle and time it takes to get to each location.
In late 2022, MySeniorCenter began working with a transit authority in MA and 16 Centers within their region to develop a ride scheduling system specific to the needs of Senior Centers. That work yielded a brand new version of RIDES.
Some key elements:
- Graphical scheduling interface
- Awareness of vehicle availability and capacity
- Integration into Events module to suggest rides for registrants
- Ability to schedule group rides
- Ability to schedule fixed routes
- Compact printed driver manifests
- Deadhead vs passenger mileage reports
There are also optional upgrades for:
- Optimized routing with predictive traffic
- Automated passenger alerts via text or phone
- Driver tablet with turn-by-turn directions and GPS tracking
Before the new version is rolled out in late Spring/early Summer, we'll hold a series of public web-based trainings to get you ready. You can get a headstart by going to mytutorialcenter.com and searching for "new rides" (without the quotes). If you'd like to talk to someone about the optional upgrades, click here to send a note to the team.
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